Zen Gardens
Yoko Kawaguchi’s book “Japanese Zen Gardens”
is an excellent source of Japanese gardening
history, focusing on the dry-landscape (karesansui)
traditions associated with Zen Buddhist
temples. Alex Ramsay’s gorgeous photographs
and interpretive diagrams of these temple sites
bring the history alive. The dry-landscape
style may seem static to those outside Japan,
however Kawaguchi clearly shows an ongoing
evolution, including its use for gardens not
associated with temples.
This book would be excellent reading for
planning or recalling a trip to Japan, especially if
centered on Kyoto. While too large for a traveling
guide, it is written in an instructive style for
Japanese Flora in Gardens
The four main islands of the Japanese archipelago
stretch north to south along the same
latitudinal range spanning from Portland to the
northern shore of the Gulf of California. This
range has given rise to a diverse flora, including
many species found nowhere else. If you include
all the small islands, almost one-third of the
5600 species found in Japan are endemic.
Unlike their European and North American
counterparts, Japanese gardeners have historically
relied heavily on their native flora for their
planting palette. The focus of “Garden Plants of
Japan” is on the plants of horticultural importance,
including the many cultivars and hybrids
that have been developed. Also included are some
a visitor. Kawaguchi was born in Japan, but has
lived much of her life in either North America or
the UK, and has an ability to interpret and correlate
both western and eastern aesthetics.
Like Keane, she focuses the latter half of her
book on symbolism. This includes the symbolism
of plant selection and, in some cases, removal. At
the temple of Tofuku-ji in Kyoto, for example, all
the ornamental cherry trees were chopped down
around 1400. All the maples suffered the same
fate in 1869, although these have mostly grown
back. In both cases, the trees were removed
because the temple monks considered them
a diversion. Kawaguchi summarizes this
reasoning: “Are they not perhaps too showy for
a temple setting, making people think about
temporal pleasures rather than reflect on the
state of their souls?”
important and even iconic plants that originated
in nearby China and Korea.
The authors—Ran Levy-Yamamori, from
Israel, and Gerard Taaffee, who learned horticulture
in Ireland, England and Scotland—bring
an international perspective to their work. Both
are fluent in Japanese and had long-running
gardening columns in “The Japan Times,” the
most circulated English language newspaper in
Japan.
This encyclopedia is, at first glance, much
like others on recommended garden plants.
Closer inspection reveals the uniqueness of its
subject matter. What British or American garden
encyclopedia would have a whole chapter on
garden mosses, or would assess all woody plants
for their suitability as bonsai subjects?
Summer 2020 v 27