8 Lessons to Learn from Japanese Garden Courtyards
As the rest of the garden turns to a wintery, soggy mess, look closer to home for perfection in miniature
In the summer, many of us are lucky to have great sprawling gardens to spread out in. But as winter closes in and the lawn turns into a swamp, the vege garden gets bedraggled and the flowerbeds are a spiky, sulky shadow of their sun-soaked glory, bring your sights closer to the house for a soothing pocket-garden inspired by Japan.
If you’re lucky enough to have walked the bustling streets of Tokyo, you may have snuck a peek over a fence or peered through the back door of a shop and spied a tiny landscape in miniature. Wherever there are a couple of square metres to spare, it seems someone has created a teeny, soothing piece of nature to give your eyes – and your spirits – a rest from the hurly burly. Why not do the same at your house so you can enjoy nature through the depths of a rainy, or snowy, Kiwi winter?
If you’re lucky enough to have walked the bustling streets of Tokyo, you may have snuck a peek over a fence or peered through the back door of a shop and spied a tiny landscape in miniature. Wherever there are a couple of square metres to spare, it seems someone has created a teeny, soothing piece of nature to give your eyes – and your spirits – a rest from the hurly burly. Why not do the same at your house so you can enjoy nature through the depths of a rainy, or snowy, Kiwi winter?
A courtyard garden viewed from four sides requires careful composition so there is a sense of discovery when you look at it from different angles. Pulling the big bed away from the centre is a classic Japanese trick to create perspective and depth – and leave an empty corner.
An entry lobby that looks straight into a sliver of garden is a refreshing change from a blank wall, or mirror or painting. Furniture placed in front of a window may challenge your sense of convention, but the piece here has a light suggestion of old Japan and helps lead the eye into the garden.
2. Make it dry underfoot
The karesansui (dry landscape) gardens of old Japan can be quite austere and very tightly directed. The rocks and minimal planting suggest the vast landscapes – mountains, rivers, even oceans – and are meant to help man contemplate their smallness within nature.
The karesansui (dry landscape) gardens of old Japan can be quite austere and very tightly directed. The rocks and minimal planting suggest the vast landscapes – mountains, rivers, even oceans – and are meant to help man contemplate their smallness within nature.
Your modern interpretation can pick up the simplicity – gravel, a slatted screen to hint at more beyond – so you don’t need decades of study to get the perfect rock placement.
Even in the tiniest courtyard, you can evoke a vast bush with a vertical garden. The simplicity of paving and severe lines of the furniture are western takes on the eastern philosophy.
3. Make it a discovery: balance and flow
In the tiniest side yard, you can still suggest a mountain path – without the wet feet – with stepping stones through ferns. The New Zealand native fuchsia ground cover (Fuchsia procumbens) copes well in semi-shade, although it doesn’t like the frost.
In the tiniest side yard, you can still suggest a mountain path – without the wet feet – with stepping stones through ferns. The New Zealand native fuchsia ground cover (Fuchsia procumbens) copes well in semi-shade, although it doesn’t like the frost.
Entice visitors to your front door with a charming slice of rockery, gravel path and balanced planting. The effect of nature, tamed, is a lot more enjoyable than soggy lawn or bedraggled shrubs.
4. Take the less-is-more approach: wabi sabi
This is not a gardening style for people who long for a profusion of colour, variegated annuals or lots of ornamentation. Pare back to one stunning tree, swathes of ground cover, and a path that invites you to amble.
This is not a gardening style for people who long for a profusion of colour, variegated annuals or lots of ornamentation. Pare back to one stunning tree, swathes of ground cover, and a path that invites you to amble.
Or go completely purist, with a garden of gravel and only one or two actual plants. Surprisingly, the less material there is to work with, the more discipline and study to get the balance of colours and shapes. A touch of water adds calm.
5. Keep it odd, not even
There are many complex rules for placement of plants and rocks, but a simple start for beginners is to work only with odd numbers, not even.
There are many complex rules for placement of plants and rocks, but a simple start for beginners is to work only with odd numbers, not even.
Asymmetry and irregularity keep the eye more entertained and engaged. Be careful, however, that there is still safe passage for walkers – these rocks are for enjoying as you step past, not on, them.
6. Rejoice in the seasons
With our penchant for native plants that are mostly non-deciduous, Kiwi gardeners often miss out on the passage of the seasons that changing trees bring. Create a courtyard around a specimen tree – flowering cherries, maples or crab apples are staples – so you can enjoy the movement through the year.
With our penchant for native plants that are mostly non-deciduous, Kiwi gardeners often miss out on the passage of the seasons that changing trees bring. Create a courtyard around a specimen tree – flowering cherries, maples or crab apples are staples – so you can enjoy the movement through the year.
If you have no room for a full-size tree, investigate a bonsai that gives you a teeny mountain world, right on your desk.
7. Mix yin and yang
Hard and soft elements, straight lines and curved, analytical and intuitive: a courtyard garden is still big enough to bring these together. Here, Marlin Landscape Systems has used changing levels and interlocking irregular rectangles to create that mix of energy.
Hard and soft elements, straight lines and curved, analytical and intuitive: a courtyard garden is still big enough to bring these together. Here, Marlin Landscape Systems has used changing levels and interlocking irregular rectangles to create that mix of energy.
Or here, the designer has mixed circles and squares, stone and steel to enliven the space.
8. Bring it out to the street
Don’t just stop inside the house, but think about converting your drive to an entire courtyard. Here McKenzie Pronk Architects has extended the existing sandstone walls into a gravel-and-paver driveway; the garden blends seamlessly on this coastal NSW house.
Don’t just stop inside the house, but think about converting your drive to an entire courtyard. Here McKenzie Pronk Architects has extended the existing sandstone walls into a gravel-and-paver driveway; the garden blends seamlessly on this coastal NSW house.
A gravel frontyard, with only enough hard paving to stop a car sinking and keep your feet dry, is much more welcoming than a sea of concrete. While the courtyard here cannot have a feature tree or rocks in the middle, the layering of perimeter plants creates the same sense of the wilderness, in miniature.
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So Your Garden Style is Japanese
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A small, composed capsule can create the serenity that a vast expanse of stunning sea, or mountains or rolling hills, simply can’t. Compose a garden that may not even be walked in, just admired. Here the gardener has used foreground, mid-ground and background plants, some loose, some tightly shaped, and lots of empty space.