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Japanese garden design ideas

Take time out to relax and revive in beautiful Japanese style. - by Graham Ross
  • 13 Mar 2020

If you’re looking for peace and calm and a bit of spirituality to counter the clamour of your life, a Japanese-themed garden may be your answer.

Gory’u Japanese Garden west of Sydney has been sprawling over its 3.5 hectares for the past 25 years and showcases all the elements typical of Japanese landscape design. If your garden is small – or even confined to a courtyard or balcony – you can still take cues from the meticulous attention to detail of Japanese style to help you create your own sanctuary.

5 elements of a Japanese garden

Water

This has movement and a reflective quality. It can make small gardens appear larger.

Plants

Use evergreen trees such as pine, maples for seasonal colour, bamboo as a plant or part of a structure such as a fence, ornamental grasses, flowering plants – rhododendron, iris, peony – and moss.

Stones

Boulders placed in isolation can represent plants or animals, rocks clumped together can represent a waterfall, and small stones or pebbles massed together can represent water.

Lanterns

These represent love, light and protection from evil.

Bridges

This is a reflection of art and creativity.

Zen garden
Photography Sue Ferris

If your lawn is drying up, replace it with white gravel or sand. In Zen gardens, they represent water.

Deer scarer
Photography Sue Ferris

Maples, a stone lantern, a water feature and boulders are essential in a Japanese-style garden. If you want a bamboo deer scarer (it makes a clunking noise), buy one online.

Shinto gate
Photography Sue Ferris

When you go through a Shinto torii (gate) you are moving from the mundane to the spiritual – which is what gardening is all about!

Moon bridge
Photography Sue Ferris

If you have room for a pond, put in a moon bridge that is reflected in the water, thus making a full circle.

Japanese style garden
Photography Sue Ferris

Conifers are elegantly statuesque, their forms come naturally and most tolerate long periods of dry weather.

For more gardening ideas, pick up a copy of the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine in selected newsagents and supermarkets or buy online today!

  • Garden
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Graham Ross
Graham Ross
Radio broadcaster and television gardening presenter, Graham Ross, has educated, entertained and inspired Australia’s gardening community and aspiring green thumbs during a career that has spanned more than 50 years.

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