The idea that language shapes the way we see the world is fascinating, and since no one has more gardening terms than Japanese, here are four words for concepts you might not have thought of before, but that can help you see your garden in a different light.
Miegakure is the practice of partially obscuring some elements of the garden from view, creating a sense of tension, forcing the viewer to move throughout the space to explore it, both physically and visually.
While plants in most gardens are arranged by height to give a sense of order and scale, breaking this strict order by placing one or two tall plants in the foreground can add visual depth and create a sense of anticipation for what may be around the corner.
Ochi tsubaki is the oddly specific word for fallen camellias, referring to the beautiful carpet created by the plant’s habit of shedding its entire bloom under its bushes.
It is the subject of many haiku, and breeders have prioritized this trait in developing new cultivars to create these “accidental blooms” in floppy shrubs.
I love the idea of spent flowers as important garden design features as those in full bloom. If you want to make your own fall flower rug similar to a camellia rug, stewartia, rhododendron, wisteria and even cherry blossoms are also great candidates.
Ma refers to the space between objects, or pauses between thoughts, words, or events, which helps to identify them and give them more meaning. Like punctuation in a sentence, these may seem illogical at first, but without them the order can lose a crucial nuance, if not its entire meaning. I think the closest we have to this in English is “dramatic pause”.
If you don’t have a bare patch of gravel, grass, or moss in tracts of land to allow the eye to pause, gaps between trees or sculptures to frame views, layouts can look saturated, flat, and boring. So knowing what to add to the chart is often secondary to knowing what to remove.
Nibari is the base of the tree’s trunk, where it flares at the roots. Mainly used in the world of bonsai, it is also used for shrubs in small gardens.
Horticulturalists have all kinds of innovative ways to accentuate them, creating the most outdated natural effects.
The simplest method is to prune the main tap roots off at planting time, which encourages lateral root formation, and then scatter the remaining roots into a shallow planting hole.
Some growers will even place a slate under the root of the trimmed tap to further ensure this. On well-established trees, you can remove the first few centimeters of the soil surface each spring to slowly expose the roots around the trunk.
I know that when we think of Japanese gardens, it’s often galvanized cobblestones or red-painted theater temples and bridges, but when you look deeper, there are many Japanese concepts that are as universal as they are ingenious.
– Guardian news and media