Englishman’s Japanese Garden (in Japan)

Stephen is a British photojournalist and author, based in Japan. Stephen’s work has appeared in over seventy magazines, newspapers and journals worldwide, including The Geographical, CNN Travel, Critical Asian Studies, and Nikkei Asia. He is the author of twenty books, including the critical history, Tokyo A Biography. His work has been translated into various languages. His new book, The Modern Japanese Garden, is published by Thames & Hudson.

books
https://www.amazon.com/author/stephen.mansfield

Welcome to Japan, Kingdom of Weeds. Wherever you go, you see scenes like this along the roadside. This is the narrow strip of land just outside our house opposite our house and garden. Um, as you can see, the weeds are growing rampantly. the local government workers. They’re not gardeners, but they’ll come along once or twice if you’re lucky here and cut the weeds, but they don’t pull them. So, they just come back. So, wherever you go in Japan, you see scenes like this. Um, this was originally a row of Aelia bushes, which was quite nice, but as you see, they’re completely uh clogged with weeds now. So, major roads, arteries, motorways, the centers of roads, the medians, sometimes full of weeds right up to your hip or waist high in some cases. Um what seems to happen in Japan is that people get very enthusiastic about ideas and then suddenly they lose interest. They’ll build a a beautiful park and uh then kind of lose enthusiasm for it. And you see scenes like this which would be unthinkable in Europe where things are very well maintained public spaces, green spaces, beautifully maintained or in somewhere like Singapore. Look at the weeds here. Totally suppressing the bushes, um, ground cover and the rocks of this parkland surrounding an old Japanese castle site. Doesn’t look as if it’s going to be tended anytime soon. This country road that I’m walking along here in Mia Prefecture is a wonderful example of neglect. You’ll notice that I’m walking on the road. I can’t walk on the pavement, the sidewalk, because it’s completely blocked by undergrowth. This hasn’t been attended to for literally years. I’ve planted these uh tamaru as they’re called in Japanese. English name is dragon’s beard weed. uh in the hope that they’ll grow together, join together, and stop the weeds from invading this patch. Let’s see how the mondo grass, another English word for tamaru, is doing a few months later. And it seems to be going pretty well. It’s h growing together. And here we have a nice aelia bush in full bloom. I removed all the weeds from inside the bush. It was suffering from a kind of internal strangulation, but now seems to be doing pretty well. Instead of trying to tame the wilderness, this intrusive uh eyesaw, I’ve tried to transform it by planting some uh plants like this one uh yatsu day it’s called in Japanese. I think it’s called fatsia in English. and uh this rather nice scikad which is called sautetsu in Japanese. My background in the Japanese garden comes from having visited and photographed over 500 of them and written and photographed three books on the subject. Japanese stone gardens, origins, meaning and form. Japan’s master gardens, lessons in space and environment and 100 Japanese garden. So the new book uh the modern Japanese garden took around about four years uh to complete. Of course I was doing other work at the time. Um but the first year was you know just email zoom meetings with the publisher Tims and Hudson figuring out the format for the book what it was actually going to look like what it was going to consist of. Um in the end it has around about 400 illustrations. um a fairly long text uh mostly on design analysis and the book covers roughly from 1900 to the present day and uh result I think is pretty comprehensive if you’re interested in the modern Japanese garden 1900 Rude to the present day. The front garden does have some Japanese garden elements, but uh let’s step into the back garden. here where first of all we have to negotiate this object here which is called a seimori ishi a barrier stone. Now, traditionally, this was placed at certain entrances in the garden to indicate no entrance. Here, of course, it’s purely decorative. Rocks are considered the skeleton plan of a garden. The schemata here you can see I’ve put uh some ferns and suabuki leopard plant to soften the effect of the rocks. And uh if we move around the garden, you can see some more rock placements here. And again, the ferns are used to soften the effect of the hardness of rocks. Rocks are fundamental to Japanese gardens, even if they were not originally referred to as stone gardens. Over two millennia ago, uh, in the pre-shinto era, Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion, people made clearings in forests, uh, covering them in gravel and riverstones. These uniwa were sacred ritually prepared sites where cami the animist spirits inherent in nature were invited to visit and empower the spot with their benevolent energy. So there’s a theological um even philosophical aspect to some Japanese gardens. Ancient paradise and pure land gardens were portals or substitutes for the afterlife or nirvana paintings and mandalas depict the Buddha sitting on lotus leaves floating serenely on a garden pond. Zen monks used dry landscape gardens as tools for meditation. Ryhai were worship stones. Monks would sit on zazenseeki rocks to practice meditation. These black pebbles here, nachuro in Japanese, are quite common in temple gardens. Uh they create borders, but they also help with drainage after rain. There’s also a bit of nature in this garden, living nature. Look at this tiny little lizard there drinking from the swibbachi the water basin. There he is. He’s gone now. Traditional bonsai in Japan are quite difficult to maintain. Here you see a number of u mini bonsai have collected like this maple tree here which is about to change color. And uh they’re quite easy to look after. So here’s um an interesting one. This is a small gajuinoi which means banyan tree. Over here is a larger version of that banyan tree sitting again on a millstone. These will have to be brought in in the winter because they won’t uh survive otherwise. Another touch of color comes in the form of this kin mox tree. Um, fragrant olive in English or Aussie manthus. The orange blossom really is fragrant for me. It’s the smell equates with autumn in Japan. Here’s another sweet olive or kinmox tree growing in the garden here. The Japanese will tell you that they have four seasons as if they don’t exist in other countries. But to be fair um they are reflected very in a very distinguished way or distinctive way um in their literature arts and cuisines with the exception perhaps of the um stone garden which has a kind of seasonal anonymity. Gardens that have lots of greenery like this one do very effectively reflect the four seasons. No slick drone images here. You have to be content with these pictures taken from the balcony. Yeah, the mixture of summer downpours and sunshine. This garden is really growing and uh looks like it’s in need of some major pruning. Purists say that the best way to cut bushes and trees is by hand using these hand shears because you have more time to think about the garden, think about what you’re doing and turn gardening into a kind of contemplation. So is there any difference do you think between this one which was cut by and this one here which was done with electric shears. Now, I think probably only a professional gardener would perhaps know the difference between the two. If you want to get the job done quickly and efficiently, this is the way to go. An electric Here. Tell me when you’re ready. As far as the edges go, there’s really no choice but to do this by hand. Sometimes a job requires climbing to fairly high points, doing it with one hand. And uh in this case, up onto the garden shed root. There’s certainly something satisfying about cutting the lawn. Uh it’s something I did when I was a kid for pocket money and found it very boring and tiresome, but now it’s kind of uh quite nice. And the smell they say is a little bit like green tea. a lot of work, but the end result always satisfying and nice to get everything done. This is a fun and very rewarding part of the garden, watering the trees and bushes. Um, in the sunlight like this, you sometimes get rainbows forming, which can be very attractive. This bush looks like I need to trim it quite soon. Here’s another angle on the watering the garden here. Looking almost subtropical in the lushness of the greenery here. Well, that was fun. But uh now we have to do the clearing away. Which in the case of this garden is going to take me at least 1 hour. In the early summer, the psychicads start to produce fresh fronds and or ferns and they just keep growing and until we have this glorious exfoliation of fronds. This is one of my favorite times of day, the mid afternoon when the summer sun is mellowing. Here you see I’ve put um the tamaru uh plants on the right pot. And here a little bit closer you can see the hoto in Japanese the water hence. Nice to get everything done before the beginning of the rainy season in Japan, which is in the middle of June, lasting for five or 6 weeks. Although the idea is to create graduated greenery, different pallets, tones of green. Um there are some splashes of color occasionally like this sus berry as it is in Japanese crepe myrtle very summer bloom here’s a furin or windchime a feature of the inside of the house uh but one that becomes part of the garden during the summer months. Um it’s hung from the the eaves of the house or at the window and uh it makes a nice sound, a nice chime which is supposed to cool you down during the long very humid summers in Japan. The closest I’ve come to Nana is sitting next to a garden with a glass of chilled wine and a good read. It’s enough.