You might think, real Japanese gardens can be found within Kyoto alone. Today I want to convince you that this is not true. There are also admirable gardens in Japan’s modern capital Tokyo. If you are already on my side, please read anyhow, you will see beautiful garden pictures and...Continue Reading
This book announcement is very special! It is the first time I am not announcing one of our common books sold on Gumroad, but, with Japanese Garden History, a book specially designed for Amazon! Some of our regular readers might remember the three single volumes, featuring the Japanese garden styles...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
When study gardening, one topic will eventually cross the ambitioned student: tree shapes. Today I want to introduce the tree shapes you might learn in Japan. These are, of course varying slightly from the typical forms in Europe or America. Some of them are unique to Japan. Tree shapes Natural...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
Japanese people tend to state that foreigners can’t understand the concept of wabi-sabi. But is this really true? Or is it one of these myths Japanese like so much hearing and spreading about their country and culture like that one about other countries don’t have four distinctive seasons? When I...Continue Reading
After seeing friends, who reside in Japan, accused of cultural appropriation when wearing kimono by non-Japanese, I wanted to question the torii as a design element in the garden outside of Japan. Is using them cultural appropriation? Starting my research, I asked our mostly non-Japanese followers on Facebook: do you...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
