• Home
  • Diary 2025
  • 2025 - Show Schedule
  • 2024 Exhibition and Show
    • 2023 EXHIBITION & SHOW >
      • 2022 Exhibition & Show >
        • Exhibition & Show 2021 >
          • Exhibition 2020
          • Flower Show 2019
          • 2018 Winners
          • 2019 Show Winners
  • 2021 Spring Plant Sale
    • 2019 Spring Plant Sale
  • Feature stories
    • Knepp
    • Delrow revisited
    • Langholme Mill Garden
    • Delrow
    • Holehird Gardens
    • Slugs
    • A Hertfordshire Legacy
    • Garden makeover
    • Japanese Gardens
    • Victorian Gardeners
    • Herbaceous Borders
    • Lunar Planting
  • 2025 Day Trips
  • 2025 Sir Harold Hillier Gardens
  • 2025 Hinton Ampner
  • Hever Castle 2025
  • Chartwell-August 2024
    • Great Comp Garden 2024
    • 2024 RHS Wisley Day Trip
    • Doddington Place
    • Godinton House and Gardens
  • Day Trips 2023
    • 2023-Ham House and Gardens
    • 2023_Wind in the Willows
    • 2023 Batsford Arboretum
    • 2023 Bourton House Garden
    • Furzelea Garden April 2023
    • Ulting Wick Garden
    • Day Trips 2022 >
      • Lamport Hall & Gardens 2022
      • Ickworth 2022
      • Fullers Mill 2022
      • Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens 2022
      • Day Trip 2021
      • Day Trips 2020
      • Day Trips 2019 >
        • Burston visit
        • Beth Chatto Gardens
        • Green Island Gardens
        • Kathy Brown's Garden
        • Southill Park 2019
        • Anglesey Abbey 2019
        • Day Trips 2012
        • Day Trips 2013
        • Day Trips 2014
  • 2025 Holiday
    • Holiday 2024 >
      • Holiday 2023
      • Holiday 2022
      • Holiday 2021
      • Holiday 2020
  • 2024 Delrow Walkabout
    • 2023 Garden Walkabout >
      • Garden Walkabout 2022 >
        • Walkabout 2021
        • Garden Walkabout 2019
        • Garden Walkabout 2020
  • Young Gardeners
  • 2025 Talks
    • Talks for 2024
    • Talks for 2023 >
      • Talks 2022
      • Talks for 2020
      • Aphids Talk 2020
  • Lockdown
  • Obituaries
    • Obituary - Peter Cushion
  • The Store
  • ART DEMO
  • Publications
  • Gallery
    • Allotments >
      • Allotment Blog 2022
      • Mini Allotments
      • Allotment Blog 2021
      • Allotment Blog 2019
      • Allotment Open Day 2012
  • Contacts and Links
RADLETT HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY

Japanese gardens

Picture
Large pond garden at Narita-san-Shinshaji Temple near Narita airport
In the Spring of 2015 we were fortunate enough to visit Japan and made a point of seeing a good number of gardens as we toured around.

As you may know, Japanese garden design is a very complicated subject and the resulting gardens are quite different from the gardens we are used to here.

The basic principle is that a garden should be a work of art, inspired by nature, appearing to be natural but not wild.  Basic principles include:
  • miniaturisation: the garden is a compact, idealised view of nature – perhaps with rocks representing mountains, and ponds representing seas
  • asymmetry: the garden is laid out as a complex of different scenes
  • concealment: different aspects of the garden are revealed as one strolls
  •  borrowing of scenery: features outside the garden may be incorporated into the scenes revealed within it.
  • There are many different styles of garden which include three main types of plant-based garden:
  • the promenade or strolling garden, originally built for nobles and viewed from a clockwise route (consistent with Buddhist beliefs)
  •  the pond garden, where water takes centre stage
  •  small gardens in courtyards, perhaps devoted to the tea ceremony.

Finally, there are the very special dry rock gardens associated with Zen Buddhist temples.

Here are views of some of the gardens we saw on our trip.
Liz and Mike Bissett

Picture
Courtyard garden in Yanaka, an old suburb of Tokyo
Picture
Strolling garden - a 16th century garden in Nikko
Picture
Borrowing of scenery garden
Picture
Small courtyard garden behind a house in Kyoto
Picture
Large pond garden at Tenryu-ji Temple outside Kyoto

Picture
Dry Zen garden at the Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Diary 2025
  • 2025 - Show Schedule
  • 2024 Exhibition and Show
    • 2023 EXHIBITION & SHOW >
      • 2022 Exhibition & Show >
        • Exhibition & Show 2021 >
          • Exhibition 2020
          • Flower Show 2019
          • 2018 Winners
          • 2019 Show Winners
  • 2021 Spring Plant Sale
    • 2019 Spring Plant Sale
  • Feature stories
    • Knepp
    • Delrow revisited
    • Langholme Mill Garden
    • Delrow
    • Holehird Gardens
    • Slugs
    • A Hertfordshire Legacy
    • Garden makeover
    • Japanese Gardens
    • Victorian Gardeners
    • Herbaceous Borders
    • Lunar Planting
  • 2025 Day Trips
  • 2025 Sir Harold Hillier Gardens
  • 2025 Hinton Ampner
  • Hever Castle 2025
  • Chartwell-August 2024
    • Great Comp Garden 2024
    • 2024 RHS Wisley Day Trip
    • Doddington Place
    • Godinton House and Gardens
  • Day Trips 2023
    • 2023-Ham House and Gardens
    • 2023_Wind in the Willows
    • 2023 Batsford Arboretum
    • 2023 Bourton House Garden
    • Furzelea Garden April 2023
    • Ulting Wick Garden
    • Day Trips 2022 >
      • Lamport Hall & Gardens 2022
      • Ickworth 2022
      • Fullers Mill 2022
      • Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens 2022
      • Day Trip 2021
      • Day Trips 2020
      • Day Trips 2019 >
        • Burston visit
        • Beth Chatto Gardens
        • Green Island Gardens
        • Kathy Brown's Garden
        • Southill Park 2019
        • Anglesey Abbey 2019
        • Day Trips 2012
        • Day Trips 2013
        • Day Trips 2014
  • 2025 Holiday
    • Holiday 2024 >
      • Holiday 2023
      • Holiday 2022
      • Holiday 2021
      • Holiday 2020
  • 2024 Delrow Walkabout
    • 2023 Garden Walkabout >
      • Garden Walkabout 2022 >
        • Walkabout 2021
        • Garden Walkabout 2019
        • Garden Walkabout 2020
  • Young Gardeners
  • 2025 Talks
    • Talks for 2024
    • Talks for 2023 >
      • Talks 2022
      • Talks for 2020
      • Aphids Talk 2020
  • Lockdown
  • Obituaries
    • Obituary - Peter Cushion
  • The Store
  • ART DEMO
  • Publications
  • Gallery
    • Allotments >
      • Allotment Blog 2022
      • Mini Allotments
      • Allotment Blog 2021
      • Allotment Blog 2019
      • Allotment Open Day 2012
  • Contacts and Links