I'm reminded of the newer methods of woodlot management that leave one quarter of the lot cut every other year; sort of a 3 dimensional Fibronacci spiral of growing trees. That spiral is seen in seashells and roses petals as well...

...also in the pruning of pine, which is echoed in the small bamboo wrap on the window 'bars' in a teahouse setting, evoking, life- cycle.
also seen in chozubachi: futatsutomoe, in cloud patterns and on peoples heads and family crests, door pulls...

blue gold checker pattern in Katsura Villa... rice pattern.
others? what is cultivated? tea? are hedges a sign of cultivation? does this explain why they are thinned around tea gardens?
yams?
salt? shiogama tsukubai
oil? yatsubo
sake? barrels at shrines... gourd and cup, Hideyoshi's karesansui garden
just some thoughts to bring the sense of cultivation into gardens.....
what else?

Didn't some of the very large old-style stroll gardens have actual rice paddies and other reproductions of idealized farms in them?

- Ev.

I feel the urge to take a lot of this with a pinch of salt.

If rhythm is OK, then why not bongo drums? If music, why not Karaoke?

Where to draw the line? At Pachinko machines?

Hi Eveyn
stroll garden never had rice grown. It's idea came from Buddhism sutras. Bonmo kyo, Amida kyo, Muryoju kyo,Kan muryo jukyo , kegonkyo, myohorenge kyo.
Kinkaku ju temple and Ginkakuji temple are temple of jodo/ west pur land concept. planting willow next to pond also you can see in sutra, of course lotus flower as well.
when stroll garden were created , music are played on small boat. be course it is written in sutra.

. It is not idea of garden designer of past, some temple faceing east, while most of temple faceing south. it is all came from sutras.
all of Buddhism statue also has guidance from sutra. many cuvers of past were created many statues, most statues are standing or sitting on lotus flwoer.

while I was visiting church reguraly , associate with friends who are christian and I did not read sutras, buddhism related books , I did not know many things about Japanese garden. Being Japanese and working as Gardener do not mean much unless study sutras and history.

mike

pish... Herb...
bongo drums = taiko
karaoke = me clucking at the duck
pachinko = now what was the name of that garden that is in a shopping entertainment mall in Japan, with the metal trees and the water in the metal river..

the music interval, or rather the interval between the notes, is an important component of the earlier poetic gardens (keane).. much the same as what is of the most value is my silence between the noise I make.
:), ...edzard

Edzard, re: your comment...
"Simultaneously the representations of cultivation often are used as design tools that reference scale and perspective (as BoTann mentions) for the incoming viewer and also providing comfort to a 'wild' garden, answering perhaps "where is Man??" in all of this.
(noting the need for people to always 'know where they are', rather than being happily lost...)"

I have a few random thoughts...

This brings to mind a lot of material from my Ritual Studies days in college, particularly the things people did to designate a sacred space in order to say "this is special/apart from the world/different in some way. The normal rules don't apply here, the ritual rules do." The word used in anthropology is "liminal." All kinds of parallels to be drawn there, and probably a quagmire of controversy as I dance brazenly on the edge of the "religion in gardens" topic again. :)

And slightly related: I'm dredging up faded memories on too little sleep, but I seem to recall that some see ancient Shinto shrines (on the lines of a rope around a rock) as the earliest Japanese gardens. That is a perfect case of bringing "cultivation" (the rope) to a "wild space" (a boulder in the woods). [Caveat: I haven't troubled to research this in my limited library or on the internet, so be gentle when you correct me.] :)

As far as evidence of cultivation in gardens: even those that try to be as "natural" as possible usually have boundaries, be they walls or hedges or fences or whatever. Again, marking the boundary between "here" and "everywhere else." And I wonder if that is why humans need the answer to Edzard's question, "Where is man in all this?" In a garden that you know is a garden (based on clues either subtle or bold), you can "pretend" that you are in some kind of idealized natural setting, but not have to worry about any of the hazards, and can therefore surrender yourself to enjoyment of your surroundings.

Ah, semantics. After typing all this, my brain woke up long enough to mention that perhaps we are talking about a certain meaning of "cultivation," e.g., agriculture. Yes? No?

So many things to think about. Sorry about lurking for so long...
Susan

ha Sus,..
good to hear your thoughts.....
I'm pondering the rope/cultivation image, only from recent excavation of newer research relating to Sosanoo, being the rope represents the snake and the distribution of the different types of tree-plant material from various bodily parts. Much to ponder.

that then leads into the rope as cultivation, which as you mention becomes the earliest boundary,... with only the knotted grass, branches, tree roots and vertical stone markers...

a current thought on the subject is that not unusual, yet rather common, and not thought of.

That nature is the wildness in which the garden is the setting of comfort elements within, things we reference as occupation.
Therefore in wildness the garden has manmade objects within to subdue the fear of nature.
In Manmade areas there is more nature introduced to show (tamed) nature that we miss and need to remain 'whole' (circadian rythm etal).
short form: man can not tolerate raw Nature :. garden is the intermediary form.
---iow's, yes i agree with you...

While I do not fully agree with this 'tamed' sentiment, feeling it omits a few thoughts that are Japanese in process such as 'caged Nature' + 'release', I find it is more an acceptable Western thought-process of nature / man interaction.
(imo, Historically 'tamed' would be replaced with 'production of', western thought of 'what is Dominion?' = production/'dom'estication, rather than domination, the root (I choose) being 'dominus' as Lord = responsible to masses, rather than tyrannize =domineer.)
shrug, difficult topic to sort through.
edzard