japanese temple
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 […]
[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 […]
[New eBook] The Adachi Museum of Art
Being involved in a time-consuming publishing process on Amazon, I am very happy I finally found the time to write a new eBook for Real Japanese Gardens. In July, I wrote two articles about the Adachi Museum of Art for two web magazines, so I chose our new eBook to be about the Museum’s six […]
Kobori Enshu-style gardens in Shizuoka and Aichi prefecture
Kyoto and Tokyo are well known for their density of fine Japanese gardens. What fewer people know is, that also other areas have quite a few reasonable Japanese gardens. One of these I would like to introduce today. Shizuoka Prefecture, former Tōtōmi Province (another name: Enshū) Before the daimyō system was demolished in 1871, the […]
Midoritsumi and Momiage – Pruning Pines
Pines in Japanese gardens are pruned twice a year. In my company in Germany, where we hadn’t so much time, we only did all the tasks together once in early summer, which is possible too, but not desirable. Here in Japan, my first company did both, Midoritsumi in early summer, and Momiage in late autumn. The […]
Ryūmonbaku – Dragon Gate Falls
Today I would like to talk about the Ryūmonbaku style waterfalls. Do you know these falls where a stone represents a carp jumping up a fall to become a dragon? The tale goes, that only a strong carp can manage to swim up a river with strong current and pass the dragon gate on top […]
[New eBook] The Teahouses of the Tokyo National Museum
Finally I finished the last book in our “Gardens in Tokyo” series! I am very happy and also a little bit proud. The last book features the secret garden of the Tokyo National Museum, which is only open for the public in spring and autumn. I visited the garden three times, twice in autumn and […]
Ginkgo biloba – イチョウ – 銀杏
Today I would like to introduce a tree, which can be seen everywhere in Japan. This blog was a request by one of our readers. Ginkgo biloba (Maidenhair tree, Ginkgo tree) Japanese name: Ichou Kanji: 銀杏, 公孫樹, 鴨腳樹 Etymology: The Kanji were adopted by Japanese from China. Engelbert Kaempfer, who collected illustrations from Japan’s flora […]
New eBook: Stone Arrangement!
This book I wanted to do for a long time and now I was finally able to write it. I am so excited! In the beginning of 2016, I had prescribed bed rest for about a month and during this time I read the Sakuteiki and already wrote down a lot of the text you […]