Japanese gardening explained - Journal Of Japanese Gardening

Japanese gardening has a culture all of its own, with the goal of producing gardens that look like outdoor scenery, complete with rock formations, trees, smaller shrubs, water features and changes in level arranged in an artistic manner. There is a major emphasis in Japanese gardening on the religious and cultural attitudes of Zen and Shinto and this is perhaps why Japanese gardens have a calming and meditative effect on the spirit. Japanese gardening is nothing like gardening in other countries and many people suggest that it is an excellent aid to contemplation and reflection.

There are three essential techniques in the layout of Japanese gardening. Firstly, the gardens are normally scaled-down versions of the real world. This involves the technique of taking what is often a real place, complete with trees, rivers and hills, and making a little model of it. Secondly, the gardeners often use symbols to signify patterns in nature. A light coloured sand could be used to symbolise a large sea. A Japanese garden will also finally often make objects like forests, which would never be in the foreground of a work of art, the most important element of the whole garden. Japanese gardening

Japanese gardens generally have one of two forms: a level garden without any gradients or water features, known as hirinawa, and a garden made up largely of different levels, gradients and water features, known as tsukiyami. The two types are totally different from each other.

Most Japanese gardens are made up of a variety of materials, including hedges and fences, stones, water features, mosses, gravels and rock. Rock is normally made the central element in the ensemble and creates a sense of spiritual growth. In the Shinto religion, rock embodies the essence of the outside world in all its beauty. Gravels can be utilised as a method of creating surfaces and can often mimic flowing water if used in the correct manner.

Small pebbles offer the chance to separate out different areas in the garden and can be made into the shape of lanterns. Ponds, streams, waterfalls and other water features are a very important part of Japanese gardening. This might actually be water itself or possibly gravels used to suggest water, but however the appearance of water is created, the whole equilibrium of the garden depends on it.

There are many different plants typically used in Japanese gardening and the most famous is the bonsai tree. This is a method of encouraging normal small trees such as oak, maple, holly, cedar, cherry and pine to take on the appearance of much larger and older trees in a dwarf form. A bonsai tree can be as small as five centimetres and as large as one metre and keep their small size through the use of very small pots, extensive pruning, and using pieces of wire to shape the dwarf tree into a variety of different forms.

Japanese gardening is ultimately about emotion and change and as the great Japanese writer Muso Soseki said, "gardens are the root of transformation". A Japanese garden will certainly create a variety of emotions and will hopefully be a catalyst for both change and relaxation in one's personal life.