Japanese Garden Seminar
Kosugi Garden Seminar, Atami City, Japan
Two Certificates, Japanese Garden History, Construction,
Maintenance
They read, "History and development of Japanese
Gardens, planting and pruning of Japanese plants (including bonsai), Japanese
pathway construction and stone arrangement, usage of Japanese lanterns,
construction of Japanese bamboo fences and earthen walls. All workshops were
carried out in Atami, Japanese nurseries in Saitama and Chiba prefecture or in
public and historical gardens in Atami City and Odawara City."
February 2012
This begins the story of my experiences and I will post it
in many sections as I have over three hundred pages of notes and 5000 photos.
Hopefully I will have the opportunity to share it as lectures and classes and
the material lends itself best to those style of presentation.
Travel Days
Just one month ago I realized that my free time in February
matched the English-speaking courses offered through the European Landscape
Association and I decided to take a chance on a new experience. I had been to
Tokyo years ago and longed to return to see the fabulous shapely pines of the
Imperial Palace grounds. Although there were trips to Shanghai, Taiwan and
Korea since then, Japan remained my favorite country to visit in Asia. After
beginning to learn about bonsai and designing a couple Japanese-inspired
gardens, it was time for a hands-on learning experience with a Japanese company
that was willing to share their world.
Bright pink and plum clouds, the smell of coffee, and some
strums of acoustic guitar start my day at the airport. The headcold that
started 24 hours ago makes my eyes heavy when I want to be wide awake reading
my Japanese phrasebook. When traveling to another country my routine is to
memorize key phrases like: my apologies, thank you, where is the toilet (bathroom
isn’t clear enough), and counting to ten. The numbers have been helpful over
the years for critical travel details such as finding a train departure and
asking costs.
After a few minutes speaking with a Japan Railway ticket
agent, I am on a white bullet train to Shinagawa. Houses along the way display
trained trees and shrubs no matter how simple or elaborate the location. Glass
and plastic greenhouses are common along the rice paddies and even occupy a few
urban blocks in Chibu. Orange-filled trees dot many of the small yards adding
polka-dots of color to the otherwise still winter gardens. That is not to say
that they are not green, far from it. Evergreen plants far outnumber the
deciduous but they are not commonplace or simplistic placeholders of unpaved
real estate. These are hedges and topiaries. These are trees and shrubs that
have been cloud-pruned, windswept-trained, coppiced, and formed by every other
manner of shaping that I have yet to learn about.
The plants are their owner’s demonstrations patience and
caretaking that is clearly embedded in the culture after centuries of learning.
They live in meditation with nature. These are not just small bonsai that I see
from the train but 15’ black pine clouding up an entrance. Sycamores march up
numerous streets in allees pollarded to 10’ wide lining the avenues of several
different towns. Entire collections of ten-foot tall this and that’s surround
many small yards to lend the shapely whimsy reminiscent of some cartoon books
for children.
Waking up on this first morning it is easy to forget that
Atami City, Japan is a sea town. Sunrise wakes up the birds and they start
making slow circles as they ride the air currents from the ocean up the
hillsides toward my window. Through the morning fog I can just make out the
outline of land across the bay, dozens of orange trees down the slope, outlines
of clipped pines, bright blue tile roofs, and heavy patches of bamboo. This
will be the place I will come to know during my time here over the next three
weeks to learn as much as I can about Japanese garden design.
Day 1
1st order of the day is to pre-order lunch...
