Figure 1.1: 2022 NAJGA Study Tour Participants, Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, Tokyo. Photo by Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens Staff Member.

By the time I boarded my plane to return to Detroit, I counted that I had explored thirty discrete gardens in Tokyo and Kyoto, including the twenty-three gardens that were a part of the official five-day NAJGA Study Tour. While admittedly a hard number to pin down (Just how many gardens does the Daitoku-ji temple precinct in Kyoto include?), it reflects the intensity of the trip. As I explored these gardens, I quickly developed a strategy: after an initial, usually breathtaking overview of the landscape, I tried to hone in on a detail or two, a lesson that I could take back with me to Cranbrook, one that might guide my work with Sadafumi Uchiyama in the Japanese-style garden I oversee in Michigan.

In 2018, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research commissioned Sada (as everyone calls him), Chief Curator and Director of the International Japanese Garden Training Institute at the Portland Japanese Garden, to design the master plan that would guide the rehabilitation of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden. Created more than a hundred years ago by Cranbrook’s co-founder, newspaper publisher George Gough Booth, and his father, Henry Wood Booth, the inspiration for this one-acre, pond-style strolling garden was the trip the Booths took to California in 1915 when they toured the Japanese pavilions and displays at the expositions in San Diego and San Francisco commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal.

While I had been doing my best to learn about Japanese gardens in both North America and Japan, my experience was limited to my readings and research; attendance at NAJGA conferences, webinars, and workshops; and visits to gardens in the United States. Don’t get me wrong, this education has been a truly invaluable immersion into the world of Japanese gardens. I knew, however, and no doubt it was evident to others, including Sada, that my knowledge was academic and lacked depth. That changed during my trip to Japan. No sooner had I returned when Sada, with his judicious use of words, emailed: “Welcome back and with firsthand experience with Japanese gardens in their native land.”

The NAJGA Study Tour, which was funded by the Japan Foundation, was designed to enable a small cohort of Americans—all of whom worked for public Japanese-style gardens in North America; none of whom had traveled to Japan—to have firsthand experience with gardens in Japan. I imagined an enlightened Japanese administrator thinking if these gardens on the other side of the globe are going to be called Japanese gardens, then the people that steward them should draw their inspiration from the best gardens in Japan. In other words, we should know what we are doing.

Conceived in 2019 and originally scheduled to take place in March 2020, at the peak of the cherry blossom festivals in Japan, the study tour . . . well, you know what happened. As the pandemic unfolded, the trip was delayed to November 2020 then March 2021 then November 2021 then March 2022. Finally, on September 23, NAJGA’s Manager, Marisa Rodriguez, emailed the participants: “I have great news! While we won’t know with complete certainty that we can travel to Japan until the end of next week or the first week of October, Japan announced today that it will loosen restrictions as of October 11th. Hence, we are one step closer to being able to travel in November.” The official news came a few weeks later when Marisa called each of the participants and told us—with certainty—that we were going to Japan!

During the intervening years and months, the original members of the cohort, with only a few exceptions, remained consistent and committed to this exciting opportunity. Along with our leaders Marisa Rodriquez and Hugo Torii, Garden Curator at the Portland Japanese Garden, the final twelve participants represented a broad cross-section of job-types and responsibilities from eleven different American Japanese gardens (fig. 1.1).

While most of us, as planned, had not traveled to Japan, it was fortunate that a few of the cohort had and could help us navigate the language and customs. The group included:

1. Philip Bloomquist, Nursery and Propagation Specialist, Bloedel Reserve, Washington
2. Shozo Kagoshima, Executive Director, Hakone Foundation, California
3. Luanne Kanzawa, Executive Director, Japanese Friendship Garden Society of San Diego, California
4. Reva Kos, Horticulturist, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, Minnesota
5. Kelly Larsen, Director of Operations, Windy City Harvest, Chicago Botanic Garden, Illinois
6. Catherine Marsh, Development Assistant and Horticulturalist, Anderson Japanese Gardens, Illinois
7. Steven Pitsenbarger, Garden Supervisor, Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco Botanical Gardens, California
8. Pete Putnicki, Senior Gardener, Seattle Japanese Garden, Washington
9. Ben Schrepf, Niwashi/Garden Curator, Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoeniz, Arizona
10. Karen Szyjka, Operations Support Manager, Department of Natural Resources – Chicago Park District, Illinois
11. Kristen Webber, Manager of Interpretation, Chicago Botanic Garden, Illinois
12. Greg Wittkopp, Director, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research (Cranbrook Japanese Garden), Michigan

We were joined in Japan by Professor Makoto Suzuki, Director of the Center for International Japanese Garden Studies at Tokyo University of Agriculture (NODAI) (fig. 1.2), as well as NODAI Assistant Professor Zhang Pingxing (fig. 1.3) and a graduate student, Takuro Koyama.

Figure 1.1: 2022 NAJGA Study Tour Participants, Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, Tokyo. Photo by Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens Staff Member.

Figure 1.3: Professor Zhang Pingzing, Daitoku-ji Monastery Precinct, Kyoto.

It was Professor Suzuki that crafted the tour’s hour-by-hour, garden-by-garden itinerary, arranged for the gardens’ experts to meet with us at each stop, and patiently answered our questions about the gardens’ histories and key features. With Suzuki, Pingxing, and Koyama sitting next to us on the bus and walking beside us through the gardens, we were in good hands. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I planned my trip to Japan so that I would have a few extra days in Japan, two in Tokyo at the beginning and two more in Kyoto at the end of the official tour (November 8 to 12, 2022). Before my responsibilities at Cranbrook broadened to include our Japanese garden, I had been a curator and then director of Cranbrook Art Museum for thirty years. Although I will admit that the idea of landing in Japan not knowing a word of the language—and without Marisa to hold my hand—was more than a little daunting, I wanted a few extra days to acclimate to the distant time zone (fourteen, to be exact) and see some of the sights that were not on Professor Suzuki’s itinerary, especially some of the art museums. Whereas Suzuki’s schedule was thoughtfully curated and tightly orchestrated, the mere three weeks we had to plan for the trip meant my itinerary on these extra days was much less structured—a combination of recommendations from friends back home, a few of the “things not to miss” noted in The Rough Guide to Japan that I read on the plane, and, by design, more than a little serendipity.

I had decided that if I visited only one museum in Tokyo, it would be the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Located near Tokyo University, it is housed in the former villa of the philosopher Soetsu Yanagi (1889–1961), who not only founded the museum in 1936 but also started the international Mingei movement. Like the movement, the museum’s collections and exhibitions demonstrate that “beauty resides in utilitarian objects used by common people.” It’s a story that resonated at places like Cranbrook Academy of Art in the postwar period when artists, especially ceramists, defined a new aesthetic through their interactions and exchanges with the traditions and contemporary practices of their counterparts in Japan. Two hours later, I had fallen in love with the profound humbleness of traditional Japanese crafts.

I spent the afternoon of that first day at the Nezu Museum. After first sketching paintings of ancient gardens and the landscapes that inspired them in the special exhibition Muromachi Spendor Seen through Folding Screens, it was time to wander through the museum’s garden—my first experience in a major Japanese garden. It was in the Nezu garden that my observations—in this case, of the paths—coalesced into my first lesson for the garden at Cranbrook (fig. 1.4).

Figure 1.4: Stone Pathway, Nezu Museum Garden, Tokyo.

Whether the paths were composed of formal paving stones or more casual flat flagstones and natural cobbles (nobedan), or of the steppingstones that led through the four teahouse gardens, I realized that the strategy could vary throughout the garden. The stones were there to guide me, often pointing me in the direction of a key view, keeping me mindful of my feet so that I did not stumble, ultimately keeping me on the path.

The next day was a Monday, which I should have realized would mean that most of the museums would be closed. A quick look at the map, however, indicated that the Sengaku-ji temple complex was within walking distance of our hotel in Shibaura. I had been reading the dramatic eighteenth-century story of the wronged Lord Asano Takumi-no Kami Naganori of Ako and his forty-seven ronin, the masterless samurai, who, after avenging their lord’s death at the hands Kira Kozuke-no Suke, were forced to commit ritual suicide. I decided a pilgrimage to the temple was in order. After dutifully buying a bundle of lit incense from a monk at the entrance (Did I have a choice?) and ceremoniously placing a stick at the base of their stone graves (a surprisingly meditative act) (fig. 1.5), I wandered the temple grounds. Sada had been calling my attention to two red pines at the edge of our pond that were leaning and at risk of falling. They needed support. As he described the two-legged supports that would not only protect them from damage, but also signal respect for the trees to the garden’s visitors, I had a hard time visualizing the details, especially where the trunk and supporting posts meet. This became crystal clear as I studied the leaning supports used throughout the complex (fig. 1.6). It’s a lesson that I now am eager to implement in our garden.

Figure 1.5: Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshitaka Grave (Leader of the Forty-Seven Ronin of Ako), Sengaku-ji Temple Complex, Tokyo.

Figure 1.6: Tree Support Posts Detail, Sengaku-ji Temple, Tokyo.

After strolling through the Imperial Palace Outer Garden, where I had my first encounter with the awesome stonework of dry-stacked castle walls (fig. 1.7), my day ended at the top of the sky-scraping Mori Tower where I had hoped to visit the Mori Art Museum (billed as the world’s highest art museum). Thwarted by my lack of planning—it was the last day of their fall exhibitions and I had failed to purchase a ticket in advance—I instead took the elevator up one more floor to the observation level. It was there, as I watched the sunset over a metropolis stretching as far as I could see in all directions, that I grasped the vastness of Tokyo (fig. 1.8). While the numbers often conflict, the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Region comprises approximately 38 million people, making it—by most accounts—the world’s most populated metropolitan region. But on the street level, there remains a human scale, much more so than when one walks through the canyons of a city like New York.

Figure 1.7: “Shin” Masonry Castle Wall, Imperial Palace Outer Garden, Tokyo.

Figure 1.8: Sunset over Toyko Viewed from the Mori Tower Observation Level.

Part 1    •      Part 2   •      Part 3    •      Part 4

Professor Suzuki planned the official NAJGA Study Tour—our five-day immersion into Japanese gardens—to start with visits to three large pond-strolling gardens in Tokyo, including two historic daimyo gardens. Created by regional rulers whose mobility was controlled by the emperor, the oldest daimyo gardens were stages where the feudal lord could demonstrate his knowledge of distant lands through the use of exotic plants and cultural references. At Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens the lord wanted to impress his guests with his knowledge of China. From the Kara-mon, or Chinese gate in the private Uchi-nawa garden, with its carved details borrowed from China, to the Engetsu-kyo (Full Moon Bridge) attributed to the design of the Chinese Confucian Zhu Zhiyu (fig. 2.1) and the Seiko-no-tsutumi made to resemble the bank of West Lake (Xi Hu) in the modern city of Hangzhou in China, the history of how this art form migrated to Japan from China could not be more evident.

Figure 2.1: Engetsu-kyo (Full Moon Bridge), Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, Tokyo.

As I began my immersion into the gardens of Japan, I was trying to wrap my head around a recent change that Sada had proposed to his master plan for the Cranbrook garden, one that would provide a panoramic view of the entire garden at its entrance. Having embraced the concept of miegakure, or “hide and reveal,” this change struck me as problematic. I had decided that the garden’s totality should be veiled upon arrival, only to be revealed as one zigzagged down stone steps to the water’s edge. My understanding of this concept would be challenged at the day’s second garden.

Kyu-Yasuda Gardens was created during the Meiji period by Yasuda Zenjiro in 1894. A defining characteristic of this garden is the daily rising and falling of the water level in the central pond. Now controlled by mechanical means, the pond originally was fed by a tidal river. During the artificial low tide, contemporary visitors still step along the large stones at the pond’s edge, which, a few hours later, are covered by the simulated high tide (fig. 2.2).

Figure 2.2: Steppingstones during Simulated High Tide, Kyu-Yasuda Gardens, Tokyo.

As we entered this garden unceremoniously at what clearly is a modern entrance, I found myself wondering where Yasuda’s guests entered, and what they first saw. Professor Suzuki informed me that the original entrance was in the opposite corner of the garden where, almost immediately upon arrival, the guests had a splendid view of the pond and all its features. As I tried my best to retrace their steps and the vistas they encountered, Sada’s vision finally came into focus: Before you invite your guests to explore the intimate corners of your garden, first delight them with its full potential.

The day ended quite auspiciously at Kiyosumi Gardens, another large daimyo garden. While its origins go back to the Edo period, it was the founder of Mitsubishi, Iwasaki Yataro, that transformed it into an important strolling garden in the late nineteenth century during the Meiji period. Taking advantage of not only their wealth but also the company’s steamships, the Iwasaki family transported some impressively massive stones from across the country for use in the garden, including the giant steppingstones placed intermittently along the pond’s edge (fig. 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Steppingstones and Ryotei Teahouse Pavilion, Kiyosumi Gardens, Tokyo.

The real delight, however, occurred later that evening. We had been invited to remain in the garden after it closed to the public for a welcome reception sponsored by the members of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Metropolitan Parks Association. As our hosts prepared the dinner, we watched the sunset and then the moonrise from the Ryotei, a spacious 1909 teahouse pavilion projecting out and over the main pond. Yes, it was a full moon, which always marks an evening to be savored, especially in Japan. Imagine our surprise when we also experienced a total lunar eclipse. As we drank sake outdoors on a cool November evening, more than one of my American colleagues commented that it was as though the trip’s multiple delays were meant to be just so we could savor this unanticipated moonviewing party in Japan.

The second day started in Sudo Park, the remnants of a villa garden transformed into a small public park and playground. If every garden I visited provided a lesson, this one demonstrated resilience. Although no doubt greatly diminished from its aristocratic beginnings, Sudo Park clearly is a well-loved, if overly trampled oasis in a residential neighborhood. Many American Japanese gardens, including Cranbrook’s, can tell a similar story. In our case, the survival of a renamed “Oriental Garden” that was all but forgotten during World War II only to be “rediscovered” in the 1970s by a volunteer gardener. As Sada says, if the bones of the garden are good, it will survive.

We spent the remainder of the morning in two residential gardens, one intimate and one grand. Within walking distance of Sudo Park is the Former Yasuda House and Garden, a prewar “Japanese gentleman’s home” that survived both the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1944 and 1945 air-raid bombings. Like many of Japan’s early twentieth-century gardens, which show the influence of the West through components such as a greater emphasis on expansive lawns, the formal reception room on the first floor of this house, with its upholstered club chairs and Western-style landscape painting hanging over the fireplace mantel, is evidence of contemporary Western interior design modified to suit Japanese taste (fig. 2.4).

Figure 2.4: Western-style Reception Room, Former Yasuda House and Garden, Tokyo.

Enter the tatami-matted reception room on the second floor, however, where there is a large tokonoma wide enough to accommodate several scrolls, and there is no doubt you are in Japan (fig. 2.5).

Figure 2.5: Japanese-style Reception Room, Former Yasuda House and Garden, Tokyo.

The collections of Cranbrook include a Usonian house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright built in a nearby neighborhood in 1950. As I walked through the Yasudas’ house and experienced the intimate connection every room had with the narrow garden planted along the south side, it was easy to see the impact Japanese design had on the great American architect whose floor-to-ceiling window-walls all but eliminated the distinction between interior and exterior spaces.

The grand garden was Kyu-Furukawa Gardens. This estate includes both a Western-style residence and Western-style gardens, including a formal terraced rose garden (fig. 2.6), designed by the British architect Josiah Condor (1852–1920), as well as a Japanese garden created by the Kyoto-based designer Ogawa Jihei (1860–1933), who used Ueji as his business name.

Figure 2.6: Western-style Residence and Rose Garden, Kyu-Furukawa Gardens, Tokyo.

Knowing the influence Condor’s 1893 book Landscape Gardening in Japan had on gardens and patrons in the West, including George Booth at Cranbrook who owned a copy, I had been eager to see Ueji’s garden. The garden’s innovative features include a picturesque waterfall, which Professor Suzuki told us was the first to use an electric pump. It was at Kyu-Furukawa Gardens that I also developed a friendship with one of our Japanese colleagues. As we walked along the rock-lined carriage road that connects the back gate to the front of the residence, I struck up a conversation with Professor Pingxing and received an invaluable lesson in Japanese geology. Pointing to the numerous volcanic stones, she taught me to recognize the differences between the stones from Mount Fuji and Mount Hakone, as well as the characteristics of those from Komatsu, which also was the source of the stone used to build the former Edo Castle in Tokyo. We have remained in communication with the hope that she can help me identify the origin of the stone used to make Cranbrook’s carved Kasuga Lantern.

No trip to Tokyo would be complete without a visit to the city’s oldest temple, Senso-ji (fig. 2.7)—especially if you can experience a behind-the-scenes tour of the closed-to-the-public gardens surrounding the Kyakuden used by the head priest.

Figure 2.7: Senso-ji Temple Precinct, Tokyo.

Was the fact that the garden was undergoing a major restoration a disappointment? Certainly not for all of us garden nerds. Thanks again to Professor Suzuki, we were fortunate to be able to watch our Japanese counterparts setting stones along the edge of the stream, learn how they were protecting the garden’s archaeological layers during construction, and see in the drained ponds the centuries-old techniques still used to stabilize the shoreline.

I finally understood that this is basis for the shallow underwater ledge that Sada said we will need to construct along the eastern edge of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden. While we most likely will use steel pilons driven into the bottom of the pond, here they continue to use logs and planed wood. As evening approached and we separated into smaller groups and wandered among the temple’s halls and shrines (fig. 2.8), more than a few of us found ourselves exiting the complex through the Hozo-mon Gate preparing for some serious shopping in the markets lining the length of the famed Nakamise street. It was time to enjoy a final night in Tokyo (hopefully with a glass of Japanese whisky!) before heading to Kyoto the following morning.

Figure 2.8: Ozukuri (“Thousand Bloom” Single Chrysanthemum), Senso-ji Temple Precinct, Tokyo.

Part 1    •      Part 2   •      Part 3    •      Part 4

Next time I take the Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto remind me to book a seat on the righthand side (fig. 3.1).

Figure 3.1: Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Departing from Tokyo for Kyoto.

Seated on the lefthand side and gabbing away with my seatmate Catherine Marsh from the Anderson Japanese Gardens, I suddenly found myself leaning into the personal space of the two Japanese women seated across the aisle from us. I was simply trying to get a glimpse of Mount Fuji. With more than a little pride in their eyes (their masks covered what I was certain were their smiles), they shifted and permitted us to get the best view and cellphone shots possible and then asked—as if it wasn’t obvious—if it was our first trip to Japan. Covering about 400 miles in two hours, we arrived at Kyoto Station and immediately boarded a bus to the Imperial Palace (Kyoto Gosho). We had indeed arrived! Midway through our tour of the palace grounds I remember standing awestruck in front of the Oikeniwa Garden thinking it couldn’t possibly get any better than this. Reading my mind, Ben Schrepf from Phoenix, for whom this was not his first trip to Japan, looked at me and said: “Wait until you see the gardens tomorrow.”

Without even referring to my cellphone shots, the memories of that first afternoon at the Imperial Palace in Kyoto—it seemed like paradise to me—come flooding back: the views of the landscape framed by the architecture of the teahouse in the southwest corner of the palace grounds; the glimpse of the paintings on the sliding doors in the “Room of the Cranes,” one of three waiting rooms in the Shodaibunoma; the materiality of the roofs made of Japanese cypress bark, and the thickness and precision of their crisply cut edges above the eaves; the enormity of the raked gravel courtyard on the south side of the Shishinden (Hall for State Ceremonies) punctuated only by two solitary trees, a mandarin orange and a cherry tree; and the repose and understated beauty of the Oikeniwa and Gonaitei gardens. From the gardens alone there was so much to learn. I focused on Oikeniwa’s frontality, standing on axis with the center of the Kogosho ceremonial hall to experience the view of the garden seen by the seated emperor (fig. 3.2).

Figure 3.2: Oikeniwa Garden, Imperial Palace, Kyoto.

It was clear that even gardens meant for strolling, changing with every turn in the path, also need to be carefully composed for views from fixed perspectives.

Before we left the grounds of the Imperial Palace, I asked Professor Suzuki if he could help explain why the color of the vermillion paint used on the gates (fig. 3.3) was distinctly different from the color of the paint used on gates in Tokyo, including those we had seen at Senso-ji Temple.

Figure 3.3: Gekkamon Gate with View of Nikkamon Gate, Shishinden (Hall for State Ceremonies), Imperial Palace, Kyoto.

Without hesitating, he explained that the paint used in Kyoto—closer to a burnt orange or persimmon—originally was made from natural materials. The paint used in Tokyo—the brighter vermillion red that we think of in the United States, and the one we selected to paint the Cranbrook Japanese Bridge based on the torii in the contemporaneous Brooklyn Botanic Garden—was a commercially available twentieth-century paint that approximated, but could not yet duplicate, the natural vermillion used on Kyoto’s historic structures. The difference has now become a tradition.

We ended the day’s tour at Maruyama Park on the eastern edge of the city, where the terrain steepens as it rises up into the surrounding Higashiyama Mountains. The park, like the Japanese garden at Kyu-Furukawa in Tokyo, was designed by Ueji at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both gardens, with their less studied and more naturalistic use of grass and scattered rounded stones along the pond and stream edges, bare many resemblances to Cranbrook’s garden. If our founder had traveled to Japan—which he didn’t—I am convinced it is Ueji that he would have asked to travel to Michigan to help design his garden. At the same time, Maruyama Park is not one of Ueji’s masterworks. Unlike Murin-an, which we also would experience in Kyoto, this public park occupies an unsatisfying space between here and there, between Japan and the West. The day before, Sada replied to one of my emails and said: “Great, I am happy for you to have a full immersion experience of Japan. Please keep your eyes on the lake/pond edges of the gardens you visit.” As I know that Sada feels our eroding pond edges with their uninspired reliance on stacked rounded stones lack character, I knew that those of Maruyama Park were not what he had in mind.

The goal had been to arrive at the Ryoan-ji temple, site of Japan’s most famous karesansui garden, before the masses. While we weren’t the first, we were early enough to have the time and space we needed to contemplate this masterful arrangement of fifteen rocks in a sea of raked white gravel (fig. 3.4).

Figure 3.4: Karesansui Garden, Ryoan-ji Temple, Kyoto.

Even if it meant missing other components of the temple complex, I decided I would take the time it took to sketch each of the five groupings—5, 2, 3, 2, and 3 rocks grouped together and laid out from east to west—to etch the experience into my consciousness. As the tour groups ebbed and flowed, I remained seated on the edge of the Hojo’s veranda where I selfishly maintained an unobstructed view. I mentally entered the space, initially wondering what it would be like to be the monk that rakes the garden. As I increasingly focused my attention on the rocks, trying to memorize their every detail, I realized that turning a single stone a fraction of an inch would destroy both the balance and the tension of the classical composition of this centuries-old garden. Does the arrangement allude to the ancient Chinese tale about a mother tiger ferrying her cubs, one by one, across a river? Like any great work of art, associations like this can deepen our understanding. But seated in front of it, seeing the rocks against the quiet ochre backdrop of the oil-soaked clay wall, I was simply aware of its perfection. As a curator I know the difference an inch can make when hanging a painting; Sada will need the same latitude as he sets the stones in our garden.

As we boarded the bus, I took a seat next to Professor Pingxing who asked if she could see the sketches she saw me making at Ryoan-ji. I gladly pulled out my black bound sketchbook and asked if she could identify any of the rocks. Looking at the sketch of the third grouping of stones, she wrote in Japanese and English the names of the three stones, and then noted that the Shirakawa-suna, the garden’s characteristic silver-gray gravel, comes from a source near Lake Biwa that only can be used at Ryoan-ji. I again felt fortunate to be able to take advantage of experts like Professor Pingxing, whose research focuses on the stones in Japanese gardens.

While it’s hard to ignore the gilt structure at the edge of its pond, I focused on two very different lessons at nearby Rokuon-ji, commonly known as Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Pavilion (fig. 3.5).

Figure 3.5: Rokuon-ji, or Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), Kyoto.

By the time we arrived at the Zen temple, the garden was packed with sightseers, mostly yellow-capped Japanese students. One might think the garden’s magic would be destroyed by the hordes (in a typical year, it sees over a million visitors). Yet by limiting the pathway to one side of the pond, the caretakers have made it possible for a visitor (with this six-foot-three American having an extra edge) to have an unpopulated, postcard-perfect view of the pond and the pavilion with the borrowed scenery of the mountains in the background. The impression is of a remote garden, far from the city. I learned how important it is to plan your pathways carefully, taking into consideration a beautiful fall day when the garden is teaming with people, not just the quiet mornings when you have it to yourself. And I will never forget Kinkaku-ji’s islands. When Sada talks about the potential of the island in the middle of the Lily Pond in the Cranbrook Japanese Garden, I now can call to mind some of the most sublime examples, islands where a few exquisitely pruned pines and a carefully composed arrangement of rocks along the edge create poetic metaphors for distant lands.

I could have left for the airport and felt completely satisfied, but we were just getting started. Fortified by lunch served in an old private house (Professor Suzuki left nothing to chance on this trip, including our lunches), we arrived at Daitoku-ji, Kyoto’s largest Zen Buddhist monastery complex. Containing no less than twenty-four temples and subtemples and their attendant gardens, it would take days, if not months, to study them all; we had a few hours. Deciding on the spot that someday I would return to Kyoto, I focused my attention on three: Daisen-in, Zuiho-in, and Ryogen-in. Whereas coaxing a narrative out of the Ryoan-ji’s fifteen rocks, if one is inclined, requires practiced concentration, it is relatively easy to see Daisen-in’s famous east rock garden as an idealized landscape scene. Tightly compacted within a narrow space, some twelve feet wide, the “water” in this dry rock garden cascades over a mountain waterfall, flows under a bridge and over a dam, before forming a river that carries a boat-shaped rock toward the sea. I was reminded of the Muromachi period landscape paintings I admired in the Nezu Museum where the mind also is invited to wander an imagined world.

I will remember Zuiho-in for the cryptomeria in the outer garden (fig. 3.6).

Figure 3.6: Cryptomeria in the Outer Garden, Zuiho-in Subtemple, Daitoku-ji Monastery Precinct, Kyoto.

A delightful addition to the trip was Philip Bloomquist from Washington. A Nursery and Propagation Specialist at the Bloedel Reserve, Philip quickly became our go-to-guy for identifying all the plants we encountered. How this North American horticulturist knew every living plant in Tokyo and Kyoto is beyond my comprehension. Waiting to enter the walled inner precinct of the subtemple, I learned about daisugi, how this variety of cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) is periodically coppiced, or “stumped,” to create long straight knot-less shoots that can be cut for use as roofing timbers. It was not just our Japanese guides, but my fellow NAJGA colleagues that contributed to my education. As for the rock garden inside the walls of Zuiho-in, I focused my eye on the grouping to the right where the rugged stones were paired with the smooth rounded form of a clipped shrub to represent mountains rising above an island of moss with an undulating coastline—another idealized landscape created for contemplation and meditation (fig. 3.7).

Figure 3.7: Karesansui Garden, Zuiho-in Subtemple, Daitoku-ji Monastery Precinct, Kyoto.

The illusion was broken when I glanced at my watch. If I left in a few minutes, I would have time to experience Ryogen-in and a few more subtemples. On my next trip, I plan to choose a hotel within walking distance of Daitoku-ji so I can spend the early morning hours of several days seeking, like centuries of monks before me, my own enlightenment.

The final garden of the day placed us squarely in the here and now. Near Kyoto Station, on the southern side of the city, lies Umekoji Park, a bustling site home to both the Kyoto Aquarium and the Umekoji Steam Locomotive Museum. It also is home to one of Kyoto’s newest gardens, Suzaku-no-Niwa Garden. Opened in 1995, it was built to commemorate the 1,200th anniversary of the establishment of Heiankyo in 794 CE, the Heian era capital that preceded modern Kyoto. I am an historian at heart, constantly researching the contexts and precedents of the collections I oversee, including Cranbrook’s Japanese garden. On more than one occasion, however, Sada has stressed that Japanese gardens are a living tradition that must reflect the needs of a particular site and moment in time. At Suzaku-no-Niwa, the contemporary moment includes welcoming a new generation into the garden. As we enjoyed an evening reception and dinner hosted by the Kyoto City Urban Greenery Association and several other organizations, we saw the garden transformed through a dramatic nighttime display of colored lights (fig. 3.8).

Figure 3.8: Nighttime Lights Display, Suzaku-no-Niwa Garden, Umekoji Park, Kyoto.

Was it a bit surreal, especially after the contemplative beauty of the afternoon’s karesansui gardens? Perhaps. But it made clear that even in Japan creative programming must be employed to keep our gardens alive.

Part 1    •      Part 2   •      Part 3    •      Part 4

The last day of the official five-day NAJGA Study Tour proved to be trip’s most diverse and, at least for me, satisfying day. First up was the Nanzen-ji temple complex, located in a pine forest at the foot of Mount Higashiyama in Kyoto. Our guides were Dr. Tomoki Kato, President of Ueyakato Landscape Company, and several members of his team, including Michael Shapiro, an extremely knowledgeable (and bilingual) Heritage and Garden Artistry Researcher. As we learned about the gardens of Nanzen-ji, one of Kyoto’s best-known Zen monasteries, we also learned about the role private firms like Ueyakato Landscape play in their stewardship and preservation. As one might imagine, the stakes are high. When a Japanese garden is designated a Historic Cultural Property, it becomes a crime to alter it. How does this work when a private firm, not the monastery’s staff, are making critical decisions, especially when those firms change on a regular basis? Kato and Shapiro explained there was an unwritten understanding that each successive firm would rehire the same head gardener. Although his employer might change annually, the same gardener provided the necessary continuity.

At the same time, these historic sites are far from static. As Shapiro led us through Nanzen-ji’s entrance gates, on axis with the main prayer hall (fig. 4.1) where we heard the chanting of monks on the day they annually commemorate the priest that founded the temple in 1290, we learned about the shift in the landscape that took place seven hundred years later when Japan hosted the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.

Figure 4.1: Main Prayer Hall, Nanzen-ji Temple Complex, Kyoto.

To accommodate the expectations of the nation’s influx of visitors, Nanzen-ji’s gardeners interspersed the native pines with cherry and maple trees, whose pink blossoms and red leaves now dominate the spring and autumn landscapes. Even the seemingly timeless rock gardens that surround temple’s large abbot’s hall, range in date from the early Edo period Hojo Garden on the south side, to the adjacent Kohojo (Nyoshin-tei) and Rokudo-tei Gardens on the west and north sides, which were built in 1966 and 1967 by Ueyakato Landscape. It was evident that the multigenerational Kato family are masters and capable of not only stewarding but also creating gardens that, with time, are developing their own narratives and histories.

Before leaving the Nanzen-ji temple precinct we visited one more subtemple, Konchi-in, and its historically significant rock garden. Reading the histories of Japanese gardens, especially those of the early Edo period gardens, it is more common than not for the designer to be unknown or, at best, for his name to be based on oral tradition rather than textual documentation. In the case of Konchi-in, not only do we know that Kobori Enshu (1579–1647) designed it, but that he completed it on May 12, 1632. We know this precise date because the priest and powerful politician that commissioned Kobori to create the garden, Suden, kept a journal in which he even recorded the dates neighboring daimyos donated stones. Kobori’s garden is dominated by two groupings of stones and plants, centered on a square stone, symbolizing longevity and prosperity: the vertical grouping to the right, represents a crane in flight (the crane is said to live for 100 years), while the horizontal grouping to the left, represents a turtle (the turtle is said to live for 1,000 years). On the back of the turtle is an ancient juniper, whose withered trunk has become integral to the composition of the garden. It is a demonstration of the reverence extended to all of nature in Japan. Even as the tree slowly dies—life is apparent in only one low supported limb—its gnarled form remains integral to the garden’s symbols of longevity and our longing for immortality. The tree’s presence invited many of us to ask if it would remain or be replaced after it had completely died? I voted for its preservation.

Early in the rehabilitation of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden I wrote an essay on its history for NAJGA’s journal (Issue No. 7, 2020). Based on vintage photographs of gardens in Japan, I drew comparisons between Cranbrook’s 1915 garden and the naturalism embraced by late nineteenth-century Meiji Japan writers and given form in the landscapes of Ueji. It was, therefore, with some trepidation that I walked with my colleagues along the Lake Biwa Canal to nearby Murin-an, Ueji’s gem. Built in the late 1890s for the former prime minister Yamagata Aritomo, on land originally owned by Nanzen-ji, the estate includes not only Ueji’s garden, but both Japanese and Western-style houses (fig. 4.2).

Figure 4.2: Six-Foot-Three Author Exiting the Garden, Murin-an, Kyoto. Photo by NAJGA Study Tour Participant.

Like Kyu-Furukawa in Tokyo, where Ueji also designed the garden, the estate represents that moment when Japan was both influencing and embracing the West.

Fortunately, my moment of validation came as Shapiro led us through the garden, showing us the precise spot where a famous 1909 photograph had been taken, one that I had included in my essay. It is a view that the Ueyakato Landscape, which also fosters this garden, is proud to note will remain unchanged because of the significance of the vintage photograph. As I stood there, soaking in the view of a waterfall and the fern-bordered stream that was designed to look as though it flowed naturally through a meadow from the Higashiyama Mountains in the background (the garden’s shakkei, or borrowed landscape), I remained convinced that this could have been a precedent for the naturalism that characterizes the Cranbrook Japanese Garden (fig. 4.3).

Figure 4.3: Garden with View of Higashiyama Mountains, Murin-an, Kyoto.

This near-perfect morning ended with an elaborate bento box lunch hosted by Uekakato Landscape in Yamagata’s Japanese house where we sat, as Yamagata intended, with an equally sumptuous view of the landscape (fig. 4.4).

Figure 4.4: Bento Box Lunch Hosted by Uekakato Landscape Company, Murin-an, Kyoto.

We followed our visit to Murin-an with one last garden, also designed by Ueji. The idea of commemorating the anniversary of the establishment of Heiankyo by building a garden did not start with the 1,200th anniversary and the creation of Suzaku-no-Niwa Garden in 1995; the tradition goes back at least another 100 years when the gardens of the Heian Jingu (Shrine) opened in 1895 to commemorate Kyoto’s 1,100th anniversary. Vast and rambling, the journey through the gardens culminates in the wide-open landscape of the East Garden (not completed until 1926). Although Ueji’s expansive garden reflected Kyoto’s embrace of modernity, it was layered with history and tradition by the recreation of Heian-style structures: the Taihei-kaku Chinese-style bridge and the hall on the edge of the pond. Another memorable “only-with-NAJGA” moment took place in the hall where the curators had brought out of storage for us some of their treasures, including ornately embroidered kimono and one of Ueji’s original drawings for the garden. As we viewed these objects and the pond from our privileged vantage point, I found myself thinking ahead to 2095, wondering about the garden that no doubt will be created to commemorate the city’s 1,300th anniversary. It is, indeed, a living tradition in Japan, with a rich history and an equally anticipated future.

Tradition also runs deep among the crafts. Through the Engishiki laws that date back to the year 905, there now are 237 registered crafts in the country. Ranging from lacquerware and porcelain to textiles and candles, they all must meet five criteria: the craft item must be used in daily life, be made by hand, have at least a 100-year history, continue to use traditional raw materials, and have a sustainable future. Seventy-four of these crafts with histories in Kyoto, some of which are endangered, are featured in an engaging exhibition in the Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design, the final stop on our five-day tour (fig. 4.5).

Figure 4.5: Kyo-butsugu (Buddhist Altars) Craft Demonstration, Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design.

Arranged by Reiko Yasui Reavis, the former director of the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix now living in Kyoto, the museum helped to contextualize the crafts that are integral to Japanese culture, including the gardens.

As the museum visit ended and we exchanged business cards (a traditional that still carries import in Japan) and said our goodbyes, I smiled knowing I still had two more days in Kyoto. I spent the better part of Sunday at the Kyoto National Museum where I lost myself for hours in the temporary exhibition, Chanoyu: Tea in the Cultural Life of Kyoto. Although I am naturally drawn to museums, the day’s pouring rain also may have led to this choice. Like my experiences at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, seven days earlier, it was the humble ceramics in the exhibition that held my attention, including the “Hashidate” tea leaf jar and the “Kitamaki” vase owned by the great sixteenth-century tea master Sen no Rikyu (1522–1591). I was struck by the fact that these objects have been given proper names, another example of the reverence the Japanese have for their history, including the associative power of these two ceramics.

Without a doubt, I overscheduled myself on my last day in Japan, logging nearly ten miles on foot alone as I raced to the Nijo Castle, the Philosopher’s Path, the Silver Pavilion, and the spectacularly photogenic Fushimi-Inari Taisha. While these sites are on most Kyoto tourists’ lists, they provided several final garden lessons. When Sada talks about a stone wall or, as he has done in the past, guides me along the Zagunis Castle Wall he designed for the Portland Japanese Garden, I now understand the historical significance of these dry-stacked stone constructions in the context of the walls that surround the moats of not only the Imperial Palace in Tokyo but, more significantly, the majestic walls that fortify Nijo-jo (fig. 4.6).

Figure 4.6: “Shin” Masonry Wall, Nijo-jo Castle, Kyoto.

The castle’s Ninomaru Garden, where the stones have been in place since 1626, also proved to be one of the most instructive places to practice Sada’s directive to keep my eyes on the pond edges. Each of the rugged rocks contributed to the collective ensemble, some providing notes of horizontal stability and calm, others offering vertical tension and drama (fig. 4.7).

Figure 4.7: Ninomaru Garden, Nijo-jo Castle, Kyoto.

And the castle’s palace provided an unexpected treat: activating the “Nightingale” wooden floorboards in the corridors and hearing the chirping that, at least according to myth, announced the presence of intruders.

When Sada talks about the paths that will lead through Cranbrook’s garden or the stone paving that he envisions around our new azumaya, I now have dozens of references in my mind (and photographs on my cellphone, all with my foot in them for scale), including the many stone walkways that guide visitors through Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), both those well-traveled as well as the more intimate ones that lead through the moss in the garden’s back corners (fig. 4.8).

Figure 4.8: Moss Garden, Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion), Kyoto.

By the time I started my ascent up the mountain and under the 10,000 vermillion torii that line the path of Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the sun was setting over Kyoto and I was exhausted. Stopping short of the summit (I’m a completist, so please don’t tell anyone!), I headed back down to the sanctuary at the base of the mountain, took a subway to my hotel, and collapsed.

“Welcome back and with firsthand experience with Japanese gardens in their native land.” Sada knew that my perspective and understanding would change. I now have a visual vocabulary—acquired through many intimate, embodied experiences—that allows me to communicate more effectively and confidently with not only Sada, but also professionals around the world. It is an understanding that will not only impact the rehabilitation of the Cranbrook Japanese Garden, but knowledge that I am able to share with our many audiences. I am indebted to the Japan Foundation for their support of this trip and to the North American Japanese Garden Association and people like Marisa Rodriquez and Professor Suzuki for their attention to the trip’s thoughtful itinerary and its every detail. It was, indeed, an opportunity of a lifetime.

30 Gardens in Japan – 30 Lessons for a Garden in America by Greg Wittkopp.To contact Greg directly, send an email to him at [email protected].

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