Seeing from the standpoint of designing, traditional Japanese gardens can be divided into two basic types; the gardens that have water in the form of a pond or a flowing rivulet, and the dry “rock gardens”, called “sekitei” in Japanese. In the Eastern tradition, the word for “landscape” is a combination of the characters for “mountain” and “water”, which is read sansui in Japanese.
Most Japanese gardens can be seen as landscape in miniature, and when the water element can be expressed with actual water, as it is. When it can’t, you have the rock garden, where the water is represented by sand or gravel “flowing” between the rock. The rocks can be seen as mountains or islands in the landscape.
In the miniature world of the Japanese garden, a well-trimmed bush may represent a tree or a wooded hill in the landscape. But it is also a seasonal element, because the garden is always planned with the four season in mind. Space allowing, there will be a plum or cherry tree for spring, an azalea or hydrangea for early sumer, bush clover for early autumn, an oriental maple for later autumn and maybe a camellia for winter.
If the pruned bushes and trees seen unnatural at first, this is a necessity of the space limitations of the garden itself. But, within this cultural context, the pruning itself has become an art that aims to preserve natural forms within these limitations.
- Newer: Religious style Japanese Gardens
- Older: Oneness with the Nature