The Japanese Gardens

Japanese gardens, what are they ? Open-air works of art ? Arrangements of stones and sand, miniature plants, bushes, trees and water ? Stone or wooden bridges that cross over waterways ? Places of meditation and contemplation ? Yes, Japanese gardens are a bit of all of this and more. Their birth, their introduction into Japanese culture, the close link they have with Buddhist philosophy on the one hand and Shinto philosophy on the other… There is a lot to be said about such a vast and fascinating subject, but this course does not pretend to teach you everything there is to know on the subject. It would take an entire book to encompass even a fairly accurate idea of over a thousand years of garden history.

This course therefore focuses more on vocabulary. You will discover a new suffix for garden names as well as a new non-honorary title.

If you want to learn more about Japanese gardens, do not hesitate to do research on the Internet : There is no shortage of Wikipedia, YouTube channels, documentaries, blog posts and books on the subject.

Japanese gardens are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden designers to suggest a natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time’s unstoppable advance. Ancient Japanese art inspired past garden designers. Water is an important feature of many gardens, as are rocks and often gravel. Although there are many attractive Japanese flowering plants, herbaceous flowers generally play a less prominent role in Japanese gardens than in the West; shrubs and trees with seasonal flowers also make a noticeable impact, even more so because of the contrast with the usual predominant green. Evergreen plants are « the bones of the garden » in Japan. Though a natural-seeming appearance is the aim, Japanese gardeners often shape their plants, including trees, with great rigor. Some of the most common trees or tall plants include azaleas, camellias, oaks, plums, cherry trees, maples, willows, ginkgos, Japanese cypresses, Japanese cedars, pines, and the bamboos. Flowerbeds are relatively rare.

Animals also play a relatively discreet but important role. Koi carp are used for their yellow/orange colors, but also to limit algae and aquatic vegetation. Turtles, frogs and salamanders are frequent residents. Birds include ducks and other waterfowl. In Nara, thousands of Sika deer inhabit the city parks.

Japanese literature on gardening goes back almost a thousand years, and several different styles of garden have developed, some with religious or philosophical implications. A characteristic of Japanese gardens is that they are designed to be seen from specific points. Among these styles, mostly imported from China, we can cite the « paradise garden » associated with Pure Land Buddhism, with a Buddha shrine on an island in the lake. Later came the style 回遊式庭園 . カイユウシキテイエン, or strolling garden, designed to be seen from a path circulating around the garden, with fixed stopping points for viewing. Specialized styles, often small sections in a larger garden, include the moss garden or 苔庭 . こけにわ, the dry garden with gravel and rocks, called in Japanese 枯山水 . カレサンスイ, associated with Zen Buddhism, the garden-pond, designed to be seen from a boat, the garden of sand and stones or 石庭 . セキテイ, the teahouse garden or 茶庭 . チャにわ, the inner courtyard of a building laid out as a garden or 中庭 . なかにわ and the 坪庭 / 壺庭 . つぼにわ, a very small urban garden with a reduced surface area, surrounded by buildings or fences, hence the generally accepted translation of « garden-courtyard ».

To quickly define what a 坪庭 / 壺庭, is, we can describe it as a small garden with a reduced area, surrounded by buildings or fences, hence the generally granted translation of « garden-courtyard ». Mentioned for the first time in the Heian period (794-1185), the 坪庭 / 壺庭 were created to fill empty spaces between two, three or four walls. These empty plots bring light and fresh air to the rooms to which they are adjoining. A plant or a group of plants of the same species is placed there, which will give the garden its name. The practice has survived to this day and is ideal in most modern Japanese homes that have little space for a garden.

The Japanese tradition has long been to keep a well-designed garden as near as possible to its original condition, and many famous gardens appear to have changed little over several centuries, apart from the inevitable turnover of plants, in a way that is extremely rare in the West.

Awareness of the Japanese style of gardening reached the West near the end of the 19th century, and was enthusiastically received as part of the fashion for Japanism, and as Western gardening taste had by then turned away from rigid geometry to a more naturalistic style, of which the Japanese style was an attractive variant. There were immediately popular in the UK, where the climate was similar and Japanese plants grew well. Japanese gardens, typically a section of a larger garden, continue to be popular in the West, and many typical Japanese garden plants, such as cherry trees and the many varieties of Japanese maple, are also used in all types of gardens, giving a faint hint of the style to very many gardens.

For the Japanese, the Japanese garden goes beyond the simple collection of essential significant elements, but is based on the understanding of principles and techniques. Without this, Japanese gardens imported outside of Japan risk leading to « looking-like japanese » gardens which would only have Japanese style.

Among the Japanese gardens created outside Japan, we find in France the oriental park of Maulévrier, considered as the largest Japanese garden in Europe, the Japanese garden of Toulouse, and the Zen garden of Erik Borja in the Drôme, including several Japanese gardens, including dry gardens, a tea garden and a promenade garden.

In Belgium is the Japanese garden of Hasselt. There is also the Japanese garden of The Hague in the Netherlands created in 1910. On the American continent, the Japanese garden of Buenos Aires is the best known.

Even if it means talking about Japanese gardens, we might as well talk about bonsai now. You’ve probably heard this word before, but do you really know what it is ?

Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing and training miniature trees in pots, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of penjing. Unlike penjing, which utilizes traditional techniques to produce entirely natural scenery in small pots that mimic the grandiose shapes of real life scenery, the Japanese "bonsai" only attempts to produce small trees that mimic the shape of real life trees.

The loanword "bonsai" (a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term penzai) has become an umbrella term in English, attached to many forms of diminutive potted plants, and also on occasion to other living and non-living things. But, if we should give a proper definition of what is a bonsaï, in the most restrictive sense, we should say that the word "bonsai" refers to miniaturized, container-grown trees adhering to Japanese tradition and principles.

Purposes of bonsai are primarily contemplation for the viewer, and the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity for the grower. By contrast with other plant cultivation practices, bonsai is not intended for production of food or for medicine. Instead, bonsai practice focuses on long-term cultivation and shaping of one or more small trees growing in a container.

A bonsai is created beginning with a specimen of source material. This may be a cutting, seedling, or small tree of a species suitable for bonsai development. Bonsai can be created from nearly any perennial woody-stemmed tree or shrub species that produces true branches and can be cultivated to remain small through pot confinement with crown and root pruning. Some species are popular as bonsai material because they have characteristics, such as small leaves or needles, that make them appropriate for the compact visual scope of bonsai.

The source specimen is shaped to be relatively small and to meet the aesthetic standards of bonsai, which emphasizes not the entirety of grand sceneries but rather only the tree itself. When the candidate bonsai nears its planned final size, it is planted in a display pot, usually one designed for bonsai display in one of a few accepted shapes and proportions. From that point forward, its growth is restricted by the pot environment. Throughout the year, the bonsai is shaped to limit growth, redistribute foliar vigor to areas requiring further development, and meet the artist’s detailed design.

The practice of bonsai is sometimes confused with dwarfing, but dwarfing generally refers to research, discovery, or creation of plants that are permanent, genetic miniatures of existing species. Plant dwarfing often uses selective breeding or genetic engineering to create dwarf cultivars. Bonsai does not require genetically dwarfed trees but rather depends on growing small trees from regular stock and seeds. Bonsai uses cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation, and grafting to produce small trees that mimic the shape and style of mature, full-size trees.

Bonsai cultivation has therefore been present in Japan for several centuries, but it was not until the end of the 19th century, under the Meiji era, with the intensification of commercial relations, that bonsai trees really began to be exported to the West. It is during this same period that Westerners will begin to show a keen interest in the Japanese style of gardening as we have said above. One thing leading to another, individuals and then companies launched into the cultivation, export and sale of bonsai. Salons and museums dedicated to it are emerging, such as the National Bonsai Foundation in Washington DC in the United States. You can see specimens dating back several hundred years, including a Japanese white pine bonsai. Planted since 1625, it is famous for surviving the Hiroshima atomic explosion.

Today, it is possible to buy bonsai almost everywhere in the world in specialized stores or from particular growers depending on whether you want to buy a cheap bonsai or another of better quality. That said, everyone seems to agree that Japan is still and always the land of bonsai.

I now give you the pure and Sino-Japanese pronunciations of all the suffixes that we will see today:

園 . その . エン . The garden (suffix for garden names)

植物園 . ショクブツエン . The botanical garden (suffix for botanical garden names)

庭園 . テイエン . The pleasure garden (suffix for pleasure garden names)

王立庭園 . オウリツテイエン . The royal garden (suffix for royal garden names)

国立庭園 . コクリツテイエン . The national garden (suffix for national garden names)

空中庭園 . クウチュウテイエン . The hanging garden (suffix for hanging garden names)

日本庭園 . ニホンテイエン . The Japanese garden (suffix for Japanese garden names)

Note: the word 日本庭園 . ニホンテイエン is therefore the suffix for the names of Japanese gardens, implying Japanese-style gardens. Of course, there are other styles of gardens, including « French-style » gardens, the « English-style » gardens and the « Italian-style » gardens among others.

French-style gardens : フランス式庭園 . フランスシキテイエン

English-style gardens : イギリス式庭園 . イギリスシキテイエン

Italian-style gardens : イタリア式庭園 . イタリアシキテイエン

Remember that these three words are not suffixes. It designates only styles of gardens.

We finally come to the names of gardens.

Note that in the translation we add -en after the name of Japanese garden (i.e. located in Japan with a proper Japanese name), even when we say « the garden… ». Or we simply say the name of the temple followed by -en

Finally, I can give you examples of the names of gardens. There are Japanese gardens and other more or less famous gardens from the rest of the world. We will find the suffixes seen previously :

識名(園) . しきな(エン) . Shikina-en garden, Shikina-en
縮景(園) . シュッケイ(エン) . Shukkei-en garden, Shukkei-en
福州(園) . フクシュウ(エン) . Fukushuu-en garden, Fukushuu-en
渉成(園) . ショセイ(エン) . Shosei-en garden, Shosei-en
八芳(園) . ハッポウ(エン) . Happou-en garden, Happou-en
兼六(園) . ケンロク(エン) . Kenroku-en garden, Kenroku-en
好古(園) . コウコ(エン) . Kouko-en garden, Kouko-en
清澄(園) . きよすみ(エン) . Kiyosumi-en garden, Kiyosumi-en
目白(園) . めじろ(エン) . Mejiro-en garden, Mejiro-en
小石川(植物園) . こいしかわ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Koishikawa
パリ(植物園) . パリ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Paris
モントリオール(植物園) . モントリオール(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Montréal
メリダ(植物園) . メリダ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Merida
リオデジャネイロ(植物園) . リオデジャネイロ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Rio de Janeiro
サンパウロ(植物園) . サンパウロ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of São Paulo
クリチバ(植物園) . クリチバ(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Curitiba
キュー(植物園) . キュー(ショクブツエン) . The botanical gardens of Kew (also known as « The royal botanic gardens, Kew »)
ポンディシェリー(植物園) . ポンディシェリー(ショクブツエン) . The botanical garden of Pondicherry
マジョレル(庭園) . マジョレル(テイエン) . The Majorelle garden
ベルサイユ(庭園) . ベルサイユ(テイエン) . The garden of Versailles
ボーボリ(庭園) . ボーボリ(テイエン) . The garden of Boboli
アテネ(国立庭園) . アテネ(コクリツテイエン) . The national garden of Athens
マルケイサック(空中庭園) . マルケイサック(クウチュウテイエン) . The hanging gardens of Marqueyssac
ハッセルト(日本庭園) . ハッセルト(ニホンテイエン) . The Japanese garden in Hasselt
ブエノスアイレス(日本庭園) . ブエノスアイレス(ニホンテイエン) . The Japanese garden of Buenos Aires

Note : there are also Zen gardens which are simply called 禅の庭 . ゼンのにわ. For example, if I want to say « Erik Borja’s Zen garden », I would say :

エリック・ボルハの禅の庭 . エリック・ボルハのゼンのにわ

Once again, we have a new non-honorary title for our greatest happiness and it is 園長 . エンチョウ. We will use it for all words ending in 園, which translates to « the director ».

Remember that the non-honorary title can be used after a name and alone but when it is alone it needs an honorific suffix or an honorary title itself.

So, if you add the suffix さん for example, it gives us :

園長さん . エンチョウさん . Mr. Director / Mrs. Director / Miss Director.

At the very beginning of the course, I recommended that you reread the vocabulary course entitled « 園と農園単語 - Gardens And Plantations ». It was in this course that we saw the kanji 園 for the first time. The kanji 園 is very common in the Japanese language because it is present in many words that are all very commonly used in Japanese. We find it in the lexicon of gardens, plantations, farms, agriculture, parks and even kindergarten, among others. Moreover, I would like to come back to the lexicon of parks. Quite simply because a park, in the end, is equivalent to a garden, hence the presence of the kanji 園. So, I put you below a small list of words of which you already know most :

公園 . コウエン . The park, the public park
都市公園 . トシコウエン . The municipal park (syn: 市立公園)
王立公園 . オウリツコウエン . The royal park
国立公園 . コクリツコウエン . The national park
動物公園 . ドウブツコウエン . The zoo, the zoological park (syn: 動物園)
森林公園 . シンリンコウエン . The forest park
熱帯森林公園 . ネッタイシンリンコウエン . The tropical forest park (new word)
海浜公園 . カイヒンコウエン . The park by the sea
犬公園 . いぬコウエン . The dog park
花公園 . はなコウエン . The floral park (new word)
オリンピック公園 . オリンピックコウエン. The Olympic Park (new word)

You already know this if you have done your exercises well so far. Even parks have proper nouns and all the above words can be suffixed to proper nouns.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the word for « paradise » in Japanese is 楽園 . ラクエン. We find the kanji 楽, very present in the musical lexicon and the kanji 園. I am not going to go into a long interpretation mixing etymology and religions – especially since religion is not my forte – simply in Japanese folklore as in the folklore of many other countries and civilizations, we find this idea that the paradise like a garden. Finally, some Japanese garden names in Japan have names ending in 楽園 . ラクエン. I will not tell you more, I’ll let you find out for yourself.

It is high time to recap everything we have just seen in this course. Here is the diagram for you to follow :

[Garden name] + 園 . その . エン . (suffix for garden names)

[Botanical garden name] + 植物園 . ショクブツエン . (suffix for botanical garden names)

[Pleasure garden name] + 庭園 . テイエン . (suffix for pleasure garden names)

[Royal garden name] + 王立庭園 . オウリツテイエン . (suffix for royal garden names)

[National garden name] + 国立庭園 . コクリツテイエン . (suffix for national garden names)

[Hanging garden name] + 空中庭園 . クウチュウテイエン . (suffix for hanging garden names)

[Japanese garden name] + 日本庭園 . ニホンテイエン . (suffix for Japanese garden names)

Don’t forget all the vocabulary we saw today :

回遊式庭園 . カイユウシキテイエン . The promenade garden (new word)
苔庭 . こけにわ . The moss garden (new word)
枯山水 . カレサンスイ . The dry garden (new word)
石庭 . セキテイ . The stone garden (new word)
茶庭 . チャにわ . The tea room garden (new word)
坪庭 / 壺庭 . つぼにわ . The urban garden (this word can possibly be used as a suffix of flower names)(new word)
公園 . コウエン . The park, the public park
都市公園 . トシコウエン . The municipal park (syn: 市立公園)
王立公園 . オウリツコウエン . The royal park
国立公園 . コクリツコウエン . The national park
動物公園 . ドウブツコウエン . The zoo, the zoological park (syn: 動物園)
森林公園 . シンリンコウエン . The forest park
熱帯森林公園 . ネッタイシンリンコウエン . The tropical forest park (new word)
海浜公園 . カイヒンコウエン . The park by the sea
犬公園 . いぬコウエン . The dog park
花公園 . はなコウエン . The floral park (paraula nova)
オリンピック公園 . オリンピックコウエン. The Olympic Park (paraula nova)
楽園 . ラクエン. The paradise (new word)

Little by little, we are approaching the end of season two. The next two upcoming courses will be vegetable vocabulary courses. You already know the basic foods and fruits, the drinks and the names of Western dishes, the lexicon of gardens and plantations; you also know the name of a few vegetables, so what could be more logical than to continue with the vegetables. Finally, you will master enough vocabulary to do your shopping at the market (in Japan I hear).

As usual, you have exercises, as always from theme and version. You will find a lot of vocabulary seen in this course, in the course 園と農園単語 - Gardens And Plantations, as well as fruit names. I hope you understand which course you would do well to revise.

With that, I leave you to revise in peace. And try to read some books on Japanese gardens, you will discover incredible things.