My Japanese garden design vision
There were a number of ideas I wanted to incorporate into my Japanese garden. Not only pure Japanese design styles but also some ideas from some of my other recent travels.
- A tea house at the top of the garden (a later project!)
- A shallow pond at the top that will be, in effect, an iris bed.
- A granite mountain below the tea house, leading to...
- A stream on two levels, connecting to...
- A pond at the bottom via a waterfall
In terms of style I wanted to achieve:
- Not a stark Zen garden based on white stones!
- Incorporate some significant trimmed trees
- Use a mixture stones, particularly black stones and slate. The imported black stones are called Kuroi Ko-Ishi
- I very much wanted it to fit in with the existing style of my house and incorporate features and themes (in a small way of course!) from some of my other world trips in particular, Ascension Island's Green mountain and the Falkland Islands' granite rock runs.
The granite rock runs outside of Stanley on the Falkland Islands
Green Mountain on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic
I already have some 'Japaneseish' elements within my garden:
MY garden gate
The granite drive built from reclaimed granite
kerb stones and multi-colour granite setts
covered in fallen beech tree leaves