Japanese Garden Design
Theory and practice in the creation of Japanese gardens
Shands Hospital – Arts in Medicine
Full screen is available by clicking the icon in the lower right corner. Beyond These Walls: Expanding the Patient Experience Cleaning a Zen garden is a soothing activity. The calming and meditative practice might be appropriate for a patient dealing with an illness,...

Pushing The Line – A Theoretical Approach to Raking a Karesansui Garden
“Daitokuji” is copyright by Datigz, 2005 and made available under an Attribution-Non-Commercial Share Alike Licence 2.0 Imagine that someone has wiped clean the pattern in the gravel at Ryoanji and handed you the rake with the instructions, "Make whatever pattern you...
The Beauty of Japanese Gardens
Can a Japanese garden be designed for the needs of a culture and changing times, and still respect the original tenets of Japanese garden design? Japanese Garden designer, Edzard Teubert examines this possibility through exploration of Japanese history and philosophy....
Japanese Architecture – Japanese Garden
This short essay by traditional Japanese carpenter, Chris Hall, is intended to give an overview of the relationships between house and garden in traditional Japanese residential architecture. (If you have Japanese enabled on your browser, you will see most terms with...
Seeing the Japanese Garden
Doubt - Learning to see the Japanese garden Mark Bourne looks back on his experience as an apprentice to a Master Gardener in Kyoto, and shares a rare glimpse into the challenges of that world. Adapted by permission from the article in the January 2011 PACIFIC...

Pulling the Rake – A Practical Guide to Raking Karesansui Garden
If you have Japanese enabled on your browser, mouse over Japanese terms to see their kanji and definitions. The entire list is available here. Andrew R. Deane became interested in Japanese gardens while teaching English in Japan in the 1990's. He maintains a hybrid...
Japanese Gardens: Notes on Perspectives, Perceptions & Synthesis
Andrew R. Deane is a teacher and gardener in Tokyo and author of 'Japanese Gardens Online Handbook.' In this editorial, he shares his ideas on the appreciation of a Japanese garden as more than a work of art. Ninomaru, Nijō-jō, Kyōto "Gardening in Japan has...

Tsukubai つくばい – Design & Construction
Elliot Mitchnick discusses the design and construction of the Tsukubai, the traditional place of ritual cleansing in the inner Japanese Tea garden. If you have Japanese enabled on your browser, you will see most terms with their kanji. In addition, most terms have...

Kumamoto En 熊本園
The Kumamoto En Japanese Garden is part of the Sister City relationship between Kumamoto City, Japan and San Antonio, Texas. It was constructed between March and April of 1989 by a team of carefully selected volunteer craftsmen and landscapers from Kumamoto, Kyoto, Tokyo, and San Antonio. This team included craftsmen from Yasuimoku Koumuten in Kyoto. The garden is patterned after the famous 300 year old Suizenji Park 水前寺 in Kumamoto and contains many of the same elements. These plaques in English and Japanese stand at the entrance to the Kumamoto En (pictured below).

The Garden Path
Professor Elliot Mitchnick has provided several articles guiding us through the tea garden and formal tea ceremony. Although he is not a Japanese gardener, we asked him to share his thoughts on pathways in the tea garden. Here is what he shared. As a tea...