Garden
Exploring private gardens in Tokyo
When I first came to Japan, I had very little money and always tried to save some by walking long distances within the city. This was when I found all these different garden styles which I didn’t see during my work as a gardener in Japan. Private gardens can’t usually be visited except when the […]
5 Bulbs for your Japanese garden
Summer is in full swing, we only want to sit somewhere doing nothing, but the garden is calling already. It’s time for planting bulbs! Today I would like to introduce what kind of bulbs or rhizome-building plants are going well with a Japanese garden. Some people think that flowers don’t belong in a Japanese […]
[New eBook] Zuiho-in temple in Daitoku-ji Kyoto
My first trip to Kyoto was back in April 2006. On my list were many famous temples including Daitoku-ji. However, I didn’t visit the Zuiho-in sub-temple back then. In 2014 and 2015, I visited Kyoto again, also Daitoku-ji, but only for special autumn openings and Zuiho-in was not on that list. Finally, in 2019, I […]
Craving Nature but Can’t Stand the Heat – Gardens to visit in Tokyo
Summer is a living nightmare for most in Japan with temperatures only getting higher in recent years. As a professional gardener living and working in Tokyo for the past seven years, I have no choice but to leave our lovely air-conditioned office and head to whichever garden we are working on. However, the truth […]
Public Garden Tour in Kiyosumi Garden
Hi there! If you follow us on Social Media, you will know that I had my Kiyosumi garden tour on June 15. And I did it in the pouring rain! And do you know? We had a lot of fun! It seems that the weather made some people not to come and I ended up […]
Pruning shrubs in Japanese gardens (karikomi)
Karikomi is a special design and pruning technique in a Japanese garden which is often seen done with plants of the Rhododendron family in Japan. It is separated into the usual karikomi and o-karikomi – a larger element in the garden put together by more than one shrub. What I want to talk about here […]
Moss in the Japanese garden
This post was a request by one of our followers on Instagram. If you want me to cover a special topic, feel free to contact me! Moss is commonly seen as a signature plant for a Japanese garden. Although not every Japanese garden will be covered with moss, it is still widely spread. Usually, it […]
[New eBook] Hasedera
Years ago I frequently visited Kamakura with its many temples. While I visited really a lot of temples, one temple listed on our website I always missed. This was Hasedera. Now that I planned to complete the eBooks for the Kamakura area I visited the temple twice and started with this garden to continue the […]
Snow protection for trees and shrubs in Niigata – Yukigakoi 雪囲い
When I visited Niigata last year in November, I found that the trees there are not protected in the way I knew from Tokyo and other regions of Japan. A large amount of snow in winter makes it necessary to create very strong protections for trees on Hokkaido and along the coast of the Japanese […]
[Book review] The Garden’s rope work / 目で見る庭のロープワーク
目で見る庭のロープワーク / The Garden’s rope work First published 1980. Reviewed edition first published May 30 2008. By Junzou Ishida / 龍居庭園研究所 Paperback ISBN-10: 4-87460-985-6 ISBN-13: 978-4-87460-985-9 222 Pages ¥ 1300 +tax I couldn’t find any additional information about the author. Introduction by the author (translated and summarized by the reviewer): During the creation of this book the author […]