Japanese Gardens
Gardening Styles
Manipulating Perspective & Scale
Karesansui (Dry Landscape)
Chaniwa (Tea Garden)
Tsukiyama (Hill and Pond Garden)
Influenced mainly by Zen Buddhism and can be found at Zen temples of meditation. The main elements of Karesansui are rocks and sand, with the sea symbolized not by water but by sand raked in patterns that stimulates the feeling of rippling water. Plants are much less important, and sometimes nonexistent in many Karesansui gardens. Rocks and moss are used to represent ponds, islands, boats, seas, rivers, and mountains in an abstract way.
Chaniwa Gardens are built for holding tea ceremonies. The tea ceremonies are held in a tea house which lies within the garden. In this gardening style, guests are required to move over a roji or “dewy path” that circumnavigates the garden finally ending at the tea house. The roji leaves the observer with a sense of fulfillment and an appreciation for their surroundings. Once guests arrive to the tea house, they purify themselves with water from the Tsukubai (stone basin).
Tsukiyama gardens typically feature an artificial hill combined with a pond and a stream and various plants, shrubs, and trees. Such gardens can be viewed from various vantage points as you stroll along the garden paths, or appreciated from a particular temple building or house on the grounds. Tsukiyama gardens often copy famous landscapes from China or Japan, and they commonly strive to make a smaller garden appear more spacious. This is accomplished by utilizing shrubs to block views of surrounding buildings, and the garden's structure usually tries to make onlookers focus on nearby mountains in the distance.
Large stepping stones make a “lake” of gravel traversable
A moss covered stone in the middle of the rippled symbolically represents an island among the waves of the ocean
Making Space Appear Smaller
Forcing Perspective
View from above
Small trees make the nearby waterfall seem larger
Large Tree
Large tree
Middle Ground Small tree
Mounding Shrubs in the middle ground
Middle Ground Not Obscured
Small Tree
Making space appear Larger Small Tree View from Above
Large planter in the forground
mounding stones Large tree and bushes obscure middle ground
Garden Elements
As well as an aesthetic function, this dry riverbed aids runoff in heavy rain.
The roji to this tea house traverses over an algae covered stream.
In the background of this Tsukiyama garden, one will find an artificial hill that tricks the mind into thinking it is a mountain.
Waterfalls
Water Basin
Paths
Streams
Lanterns
Bridges
Ponds
Koi
Gates
Common Plant Materials Trees & Large Shrubs
Medium-sized shrubs Small Shrubs & small trees
Japanese Maple Acer palmatum
Cherry Plum Prunus cerasifera
Chinese Redbud Cercis chinensis
Star Magnolia Magnolia stellata
Stanford Dwayne Barnes III ORH 3515 Duke
Japanese holly Ilex crenata
Japanese Camellia Camellia japonica
Landscape Plants II Spring 2009
Chinese Juniper Juniperus chinensis
Rose Daphne Daphe cneorum
Vines
Japanese Wisteria Wisteria floribunda
Climbing Hydrangea Hydrangea petiolaris
Water Plants
Bamboo
Water lily Nymphaea
Black Bamboo Phyllostachys nigra
Japanese Iris Iris ensata
Yellow Groove Bamboo Phyllostachys aureosulcata