The Japan Garden 3: Elements

September 21, 2025

Water

I’ve already mentioned that my first proposal had a split pavilion in the middle of a pond created by damming the valley. Early doubts regarding long-term maintenance and safety led to the depth of the pond being reduced and reduced until there was no more pond. In the end, this wasn’t a bad thing. The Kitakami River flows through Ishinomaki to empty into a bay facing the Pacific Ocean due south off the west coast of Japan. Following the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake, a 6.5 meter high tsunami travelled up the Kitakami River. About 6,000 of the 20,000 people who died in the earthquake and tsunami were in Ishinomaki. Devastating is not the word. In a Japanese garden It’s impossible not to have water or a representation of it, but I wasn’t keen on the idea of having water as a strong presence in this one.

Rocks

Rocks are problematic for different reasons. They can represent islands, mountains or ever waterfalls. They’re rarely just rocks. Below right is a key to understanding the rocks in the image on the left.

Interestingly, rocks in a Japanese garden are ideally placed and buried so only the upper one-third shows. Apparently it makes them look and feel more grounded and I can appreciate this. There’s nothing worse than a rock that just looks like it’s been dumped there. But that’s not the real problem. There are five types of rocks. The ones in this illustration look barely half buried.

What’s more, there are five basic combinations of those five types of rock. From left to right below, we have 1) tall vertical and reclining, 2) tall vertical, short vertical and reclining, 3) short vertical and flat, 4) tall vertical, flat and reclining and 5) tall vertical, arching, short, vertical, flat and reclining. The fourth combination is a classic. We’re not even going to talk about their geology. Japan has an abundance of volcanic rock and some areas are famous for their rock (and rocks). Fortunately for me and The Japan Ishinomaki Garden, using locally sourced materials is a good thing when making a Japanese garden.

The rock grouping in this image is of Hōrai Island and is by famous polymath Mirei Shigemori (1896-1975). It’s difficult to imagine what an avant-garde Japanese garden designer would be like but he was one. This particular grouping of rocks was sensational for its combination of rocks with exaggerated heights and lengths, something that had never been seen before in a temple garden.

This one is more conventionally lovely. It’s the rock and moss garden known as Dragon Singing Garden at Daitoku Monastery. It represents The Universe. The tallest rock leans to the east and is generally believed to represent Mt. Shumisen which is the center of the universe according to Hindu and Buddhist thought. Many people see the white stripe on the side of the rock as a waterfall. Other people see the whole grouping as representing a dragon, with the inclined rock being its head. A dragon happens to be the Zen symbol of enlightenment. Or the nature of Buddhism. I’m mildly terrified if a group of rocks is going to be subject to that level of scrutiny and expectation but, on the other hand, I’m glad that alternative interpretations are permitted. Are enigmatic signifiers the answer after all? Or maybe it’s safer to simply reference Dragon Singing Garden in this area with the same size, incline and orientation? Forgive the lack of meaning in this placeholder garden. June when the sun is highest is also Wenzhou’s wettest month. Moss should grow on this north side at least as well as in Kyoto.

Gravel

Something similar happens with gravel. At one design update meeting, a member of the client team asked if the Japanese garden could be made more “Zen”. I’m fairly sure this person used the word “Zen” as shorthand to refer to a karesansui dry rock and gravel garden but the only level area available for such a feature was the open area where the site is entered from the access road. It’s always good to acknowledge client suggestions but, in a kare sansui garden, rocks represent islands that are symbolic of the eternally unchanging universe, while the raked gravel represents the sea that is symbolic of ever-changing life. I’ll explain in more detail in a later post, but I couldn’t put rocks representing islands at the entrance to the Japan Ishinomaki Garden because I’d already planned for it to have rocky representations of islands doubling as containers for soil better suited to the pine trees requested by the City of Ishinomaki. And using raked gravel wasn’t an option for the entrance not because of the daily upkeep, but because raked gravel simply isn’t meant to be walked on. As well as being uncomfortable, it’s just wrong. The feature image has a combination of straight and piled.

It’s very rare to have stepping stones across gravel but it does happen. Both these images are from two more gardens at Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto.

The final design uses white paving bricks laid in parallel rows and concentric circles suggestive of raked gravel while not trying to imitate it even though any allusion to raked gravel makes it a representation of the ever-changing sea. There are many standard patterns for raking the gravel in kare sansui gardens and some gardens have bespoke patterns. Using any of these felt inappropriate in a “non-native” garden designed by me a non-Japanese. I don’t want to lay myself open to accusations of cultural appropriation but, in a way, that’s the nature of the task. And so the paving for the Japan Ishinomaki Garden has some simple rules that determine the geometry and extent of the rows of paving bricks laid end-on-end, and also the concentric circles of half bricks. I’m hoping the geometry of the paving is stronger than the inevitable associations with gravel that represents the ocean that symbolizes the ever changing ….

Paths

Paths in a Japanese (strolling) garden are many and varied. They don’t have to be all the same because some ground is level, some not. Some paths are primary paths and others secondary. The stability of the ground is important but there are times when simple earth or gravel might be suitable. Sometimes, even fake wood-effect concrete seems right. You’ll see mixes of natural stone and cut stone. What you won’t see are intricate geometries of the Islamic style or the regularity of Mediterranean or even some Chinese paving. Paths are ideally not straight. Functionally, the paths have to take visitors on a tour of the garden, offering them a choice of ways to go. Visitors should be able to arrive back at where they started without retracing their route. A Japanese strolling garden may strive to recreate the experience of walking along mountain paths but, for all their curviness and natural materials, paths in a Japanese garden are not trails. They’re very clearly artificial things and the will of the path designer is always on display whether expressed through contrived casualness or casual artfulness.

Decorative Elements

On two occasions I was asked if I couldn’t add more Japanese garden decorative elements. There were always going to be some and I was probably wrong in not having indicated so earlier. There will be a stone lantern or two, a carved rock basin for maple leaves to fall prettily into, rain chains … There’s no lack of choice. The challenge it to not make it look like they’ve been liberally sprinkled. They can’t be hidden too much but it’s better for people happen upon them. Their locations must make sense. I’m still working on it. So far, I’ve found a place for one lantern.