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Notable as the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, this complex of many paths, ponds and a teahouse features native Japanese and Chinese plants. Also hidden throughout its five acres (20,000 m²) are sculptures and bridges.
Makato Hagiwara, a Japanese gardener who was official caretaker of the garden from 1895 to 1942, was also the inventor of the fortune cookie. A persistent (but likely apocryphal) legend records that the Japanese ambassador, after being shown its features and asked his opinion, gasped, "We have nothing to equal it in Japan". |
| Description | |
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Japanese gardens (nihon teien), i.e. gardens in traditional Japanese style, can be found at private homes, in neighborhood or city parks, at Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines, and at historical landmarks such as old castles. Many of the Japanese gardens most famous in the West, and within Japan as well, are dry gardens or rock gardens, karesansui. The tradition of the Tea masters has produced highly refined Japanese gardens of quite another style, evoking rural simplicity. Japanese gardens have also been imitated in Western gardening.
Typical Japanese gardens contain several of these elements, real or symbolic :
- Water
- An island
- A bridge to the island
- A lantern, typically of stone
- A teahouse or pavilion
Japanese gardens might fall into one of these styles :
- Pond gardens, for viewing from a boat.
Sitting gardens, for viewing from inside a building or on a veranda.
- Tea gardens, for viewing from a path which leads to a tea ceremony hut.
- Strolling gardens, for viewing from a path which circumnavigates the garden.
- The karesansui (or karesenzui, kosansui, kosensui : "dry landscape") style originate from zen temples. These have no water and few plants, but typically evoke a feeling of water using pebbles and meticulously raked gravel or sand. Rocks chosen for their intriguing shapes and patterns, mosses, and low shrubs typify the karesansui style. The garden at Ryôan-ji, a temple in Kyoto, is particularly renowned.
Other gardens also use similar rocks for decoration. Some of these come from distant parts of Japan. In addition, bamboos and related plants, evergreens including Japanese black pine, and such deciduous trees as maples grow above a carpet of ferns and mosses.
Shakkei, "borrowed scenery," is a technique used to integrate the garden with mountains, buildings, or other objects outside its boundaries. A middleground element, often carefully maintained plantings, blocks unwanted elements and frames the desired view. This middleground integrates the "borrowed" view into the garden's design. The viewer is encouraged to see all three areas - foreground, middleground, and background - as a single garden. |
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