Many of our clients seek and are enthusiastic  in adding in their designs gardens and especially Japanese Gardens. However, being able to create, maintain, and even just appreciate traditional Japanese gardens takes a much longer time experience, just like any other traditional arts do.

The art of Japanese Garden is led by certain principles and rules being practiced since ancient times and becoming an artistic profession.

The hidden meaning of Zen Garden directs to various levels of enlightenment, the gradual or sudden revelation, of the original intrinsic nature. In Zen, this is called ” understanding the mind and seeing the nature”.

Japanese Gardens derive their beauty from mixing a blending of different elements such as sand, rocks, water, ornaments, natural plants and surroundings.

The garden’s objectives are to bring a small part of the Japanese Culture to the location by using the tea garden principles to embellish the surroundings and to create a place for contemplation and relaxation.

The Basics

Rock Garden ( Karesansui)

The first type of garden you may consider is rock garden, which includes the elements of sand. This form includes no water element, and its designed to portray a scene of mountains and rivers.

Sand raked into a particular pattern is meant to symbolize the river, whole rocks placed on the sand symbolize the mountains.

The sand and the gravel used in these gardens represents the sea or the ocean and are substitutes for water. They are arranged very carefully,  to create the impression of waves.

The stones represent the island which emerge from the water. Essentially, the purpose of these gardens is to recreate on a small scale, just as would see from a plane, the combination of water and land.

The gravel should be ranked every day to mimic the flow of the water. The traditional gravel of a rock garden is made from crushed granite and can be white-gray or beige.

To achieve an alley of sand or gravel, initially the land is covered with a plastic wrap to avoid the growing of unwanted weeds and grasses.

Moss Garden

Another type you can create is Moss Garden. Japanese gardens often utilize moss because of its versatility and resilience. Moss is able to survive and remain green even in harsh conditions, including severe cold and drought. As a group, they withstand heat and cold, grow slowly and live a longer time.

Because moss doesn’t grow dramatically overnight, and instead takes years and years to cover the surface of a stone-the Japanese see something inherently virtuous about this plant.

They make an excellent ground cover for shade gardens, accents for rock gardens and water features, and are a low-maintenance alternative for grass lawns. Mosses will grow on rocks, between paving stones, in soil, or any shaded spot where other plants can’t grow.

Of course, there is also  the beauty of moss: Vibrant colors, that vary from bright green to brown, which richly complement the steely grays of stones. As well, to touch the plant’s sensual, soft surface.

Moss has remained a crucial element in Japanese gardens because it is considered a peaceful plant.

 The View

The Japanese Garden is a “work of art” which is to be appreciated while sitting in a relaxation/ or family area. When you see a garden from inside the building, you are supposed to sit down on the floor, not standing or even sitting on a chair, because the eye-level is assumed that way in the design.

“Seeing is believing” is the most frequently heard comment, and it is very true when we talk about natural environment.

The Japanese Aesthetic

It’s often say that some of the biggest inspirations are in nature- usually air, wind and water.

Most rock gardens are ranked and arranged to look like water or waves or some sort of movement. But a lot of gardens have just a lot of blank, flat space.

Even though the trees and patterns often stand out a lot more, that blankness, that stillness, is just as crucial.

Aspects of quality that can be seen walking along a garden is shaped forests, shallow water, bamboo, stones.  It is important to include in  the plan, the position where stone and water match each other, and their harmonious coexistence describe green color of plants.

A small swimming pool or a even a water filled bowl, can be a necessary part of the garden.

The garden alley, in Japanese called ROJI, is not only a functional element and is not only representing the entrance of the garden.  It is a philosophical path separating the viewer, step by step, from the hectic and exhausting world that he came.

The stones of the alley are placed with a careful irregularity and often lean indirectly to hidden areas. The places where the path turns in one direction or another are attractions that prompt the visitor to stop and represents, to another level, meditative periods of life.

Zen Principles

The conceptual basis of a Japanese garden are:

• Kanso – simplicity (follows the idea “less is more”);
• Fukin – asymmetry (based on the principle that imperfection is part of existence, the geometry insist on asymmetry in Japanese garden);
• Shibumi – elegant simplicity;
• Shizen – the natural (should make the garden look as if it grew by itself)
  
• Yugen – suggestion (what is not shown is more important than what is shown);
• Datsoku – surprise (creates tension between elements)
  
• Seijaku – silence.

Everyone should try to add a little bit of “zen” in their lives. The Japanese influences as gardens represents a good way of transforming your own green space into a relaxant space.

The most important goal behind planning Japanese garden from the creators of gardens in which design stands out the harmonious beauty of nature, is to inspire contemplation without frustrating the same garnish colors.

The Japanese garden is a very important tool in the architectural design because, not only is a garden included in any house design, the garden itself reflects a deeper set of cultural and traditional meanings.

The art of stone in a Japanese garden is that of placement. Its ideal does not deviate from that of nature” Isamu Nogochi