by Sammy Stein

Created on: September 06, 2010

Japanese gardens have a very distinctive style. Many people put  'Eastern' gardens together under some kind of umbrella design style or confuse Japanese and Chinese gardens but, although the Japanese style originally owed much to the Chinese style of imitating nature, their gardens have distinctive qualities of their own.

One Japanese designer showed me a simple but beautiful way of planting a Japanese garden. He said to imagine the garden as a reflection of a journey. At the beginning is a bed of raked fine gravel with two stepping stones leading to a simple path. This is your life when you come into it - bare with guiding stones (family). The stones lead to a path,alongside which are small plants such as Buxus sempervirens or clipped lavenders on one side and small rocks on the other. These are the knowledge of material and natural things you gather as you walk. The path comes to a bridge and on the other side it divides. Under the bridge is a dry river bed. The river bed is a symbol of things you will see and pass over, dismissing them in your life, allowing them to flow to the wider ocean. The place where the paths meet is when you marry and have children (who take their own roads). The plants and boulders grow in size as you walk along the path and over the bridge because as you journey you gather knowledge of material things and Nature.

Beyond the bridge, the gravel becomes larger pebbles as your life fills with knowledge and the path leads to a small temple with a seat facing back down the garden. To one side is a small pile of stones representing the mountains, unmoving and calm. The rocks and plants are larger still either side but further back towards the boundaries, allowing space for your spirit. In your temple (which is your spiritual destination at the end of your life, you can sit, look back and reflect on your life.

As you sit and look back, on the left hand side in the corner is an Acer griseum. This small tree reflects how small things can mean a lot in life because it offers something each season from blossom in spring, leaves in summer, fruit and leaf colors in autumn and fruit and peeling bark in winter. Otherwise the planting is simple and consists of only the clipped buxus or lavender, perhaps a few small shrubs alongside the fence and in a pot beside the temple are some bulbs - both for spring and summer so you can include iris, daffodils or narcissi, crocus, alliums and anemones. In another pot is a chosen azaelea bush. These represent change and different things which will come into your life, yet not affect your spirituality.

In a Japanese garden it is vital not to plant close to corners or boundaries and to leave a space for chi - the energy of life so it can come into the garden, flow easily around and escape. Trapped chi in corners will become negative energy and create a sense of confusion and chaos whilst free moving chi will create a place of calm and well being.

Japanese gardens are special, spiritual places and by understanding their origins and development, we can recreate a taste of that special atmosphere.

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