(Part.1) Japanese Garden Tour with Reflections: Recalling Two Years of Our Creations

In this video, I would like to look back on two years of creating Japanese gardens. A total of three videos will look back on the project!
I hope you enjoy them.

Niwashi：Taichi Yamagiwa　山際大地
Video:

撮影協力：兼六園
Video:

施工庭師：佐野友厚 / Tomoatsu Sano
Video:
https://studio.youtube.com/video/clAoB34Rc-M/edit
https://www.instagram.com/sano_tomoatsu_niwa/

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In this video, I would like to look back on the gardens that we have constructed in the last two years, including my impressions and what they were like at the time.

Over the past two years, I have been all over Japan, to so many different places, met with so many different gardeners, and had wonderful experiences. I would like to look back on those experiences. I will summarize them in about three videos, so please enjoy them to the end.

Let’s start with the first. This is a construction project in Shibuya, Tokyo. This site left a very deep impression on me personally. Until this site began, Japanese Garden TV had mainly filmed in Kyoto. However, after this project, I started shooting videos in places away from Kyoto.

The construction started in September 2021, and then continued until the end of November. During that time, I lived with Mr. Yamagiwa, the Niwashi, all the time. We ate together in the morning, filmed the garden work, found intervals to edit, and made videos every week.

The result was a very long project with 14 videos. To be honest, I think it was a very hard project. Mr. Yamagiwa was a really skilled Niwashi. In this garden, he built an earthen wall using a method called hanchiku,

And a bamboo fence called kouetsuji-fence, which is said to be the most difficult to make. All of them were made with sensitivity, beauty, and elegance. The contour lines of the earthen walls and bamboo fences were refined and elegant, with no wasted points.

Looking back at the video, I feel that Mr. Yamagiwa’s handiwork is so refined and beautiful that it gives me goosebumps. It is rare to find a Niwashi in Japan who is so skillful with his handiwork.

Japanese Niwashi often design the garden, procure materials, construct the gardens, and care for them, all in one integrated process. I thought that Mr. Yamagiwa, who is both a garden designer and a craftsman, is a Niwashi who truly embodies this.

I felt that this attention to all the details and the ability to consistently create a garden led to this wonderful garden with its overall harmony! In this video, I filmed the work of Yukitsuri in Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa with the cooperation of Kenrokuen.

The city of Kanazawa, where Kenrokuen is located, is prone to snow. Therefore, ropes are tied to pine branches one by one to prevent them from being broken by the weight of snow on the branches. And it is Japanese Yuki-Tsuri that not only protects the branches, but also makes them look very cool.

The pine trees in Kenrokuen Garden are incredibly large, and you will not find such magnificent pine trees anywhere else in Japan. The Niwashi of Kenrokuen maintain this important pine tree every day. The first step in the process of Yukitsuri is to tie a rope to a large pillar.

Then, the pillar is fastened to the pine tree. Then the Niwashi climbs to the top of the pole and distributes the rope from the top to the waiting Niwashi below. The men below then tie the ropes to the branches. I was very impressed by their refined workmanship,

The beauty of the tied ropes, and the beauty of the final result. This Yukitsuri work has been started more than 100 years ago. During that time, I think that the work and its materials such as straw ropes have not changed greatly from the past.

And as this Yukitsuri is carried out year after year, the traditional techniques and wisdom are passed on to the next generation. Also, many people visit Kenrokuen Garden to see the Yukituri. I sincerely hope that this cycle will continue, and that this tradition will be preserved for the future.

The last one is the garden of Mr. Sano, who has been on Japanese Garden TV most of the time. The location is a courtyard in a house in an alley in Kyoto. The owner has small child and wanted a space for the child to play a little

And also wanted to incorporate some Japanese style elements. Mr. Sano did not just use Japanese materials, but used Vietnamese slabs of a slightly darker color to create a terrace for the small child. The slabs blended beautifully with the slightly foreign style of the building.

Mr. Sano further added an Oribe lantern as a Japanese style element to this space. Then, he also added a hand basin that he made himself by processing the umbrella of the lantern. It is not easy to harmonize this strong Japanese element in this space.

If only Japanese-like elements were used, it would be easy to harmonize the entire garden, but a purely Japanese-style garden would be difficult to harmonize with the wooden deck and this building. On the other hand, it is not interesting to just match it with the foreign-style building. Nor does it answer the owner’s request.

However, Mr. Sano made full use of plants, stones, and various other elements, By striking the perfect balance between Japanese and foreign styles, he has created a garden that blends beautifully with the house. This may seem like an easy task, but it is quite a difficult one.

It is in this aspect that we can see Mr. Sano’s good sense. Mr. Sano’s knowledge, skill, experience, and various other elements were incorporated to create a garden that is modern, yet somehow very Kyoto-like.