In this chapter…

1. •Quintessentially Japanese
   

2. •Cherry blossoms
   

3. •“Plum” flowers
   

4. •Pine needles
   

5. •Maple leaves
   

6. •Bamboo shoots
   

7. •Carpets of moss
   

8. •Lotus roots
   

9. •Clipped azaleas
   

Photographs

Quintessentially Japanese

Plants are common to all Japanese garden styles. Even a dry landscape, which may not employ plants directly, usually exploits surrounding flora in the form of borrowed scenery, and more often than not, moss and other inconspicuous ground covers are present in the composition itself. Together with water, plants make gardens dynamic, providing not only texture and color, but movement across time. They reinforce the rhythm of the seasons, and provide contrast to the apparent permanence and immutability of stone. As wind or rain plays across the green leaves or scatters the pale blossoms, we perceive the garden as a living canvas. This chapter covers eight of the most common – the most quintessentially Japanese - plants found in Japanese gardens. Appendix C: Common flora provides a selective list of additional flora associated with Japanese gardening.

Cherry blossoms

shikishima no

    yamato-gokoro wo

hito towaba,

    asahi ni niou

yamazakura-bana

Motōri Norinaga (本居宣長 1730-1801)

Sakura (桜 Prunus spp.; Prunus pseudo-cerarus; Cerasus pseudo-cerasus), the flowering or Japanese cherry, is the undisputed empress of trees in Japan, and it permeates every aspect of Japanese culture. The poem above translates loosely as, “If one should ask after the real Japanese spirit, point to the mountain cherry blossoms shining under the morning sun.” The dates of cherry blossom season vary according to latitude, with the earliest blossoms appearing on Kyushu around 31 March and the latest on Hokkaido around 20 May. Cherry blossoms are known as ōka (桜花) or sakurabana (桜花; poetic), and optimal viewing times and places are broadcast on national television and radio.

Also encountered in gardens is the yamazakura  (山桜, shiro-yamazakura 白山桜 P. jamasakura; syn. P. denarium, P. serrulata var. spontanea), the mountain cherry, Japanese hill cherry or wild cherry, and prior to the Meiji period (1868-1912), almost all the cherries encountered in Japan would have been this species. The mountain cherry is associated only with the deep mountains of Japan, and symbolizes impermanence and perishability:

Nature too is sad.

See the mountain cherry-tree,

Whether old or young,

Whether late or early,

Cannot keep its blossom long.

Tales of the Heike

The Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes) has this to say about the ubiquitous cherry:

While the Japanese cherry may be found most anywhere, on mountain peaks, mountainsides, or in the deep mountains, you must chiefly bear in mind villages when you plant it… For its “home site,” bear in mind the south… Really, the cherry, possessing the special qualities that it does as a tree, may be planted in any location whatsoever without difficulty, so long as you plant one specimen in the cherry’s home environment.

The Heian-period (794-1185) Sakuteiki (作庭記 A Record of Garden Making) mentions the sakon-no-sakura (左近の桜 “left close cherry”), one of the sacred trees planted to the east of the main stairway leading from the main hall to the nantei (南庭), where it symbolized the evanescent quality of life. The sakura is also seen as an emblem of “that delicacy of sentiment and blamelessness of life belonging to high courtesy and true knightliness,” as Lafcadio Hearn puts it. An old Japanese proverb translates, “As the cherry flower is first among flowers, so should the samurai warrior be first among men.” However, its blossoms are also employed by artists and poets as symbols of a woman’s physical beauty or youthful charm. Cherry trees also form the backdrop to the kabuki play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (義経千本桜), and Basil Chamberlain notes that the sakura gained popularity during the Meiji period because it was specifically a native species, and its rival, the plum tree, is Chinese in origin.

Hanami (花見 “flower-viewing”) forms the explicit excuse for annual spring drinking  parties that take place under the cherry blossoms in the first few weeks of April. Indeed, so important are the sakura blossoms to the Japanese people that during the early spring the television stations carry nightly updates of the top viewing locations and list dates and duration of the blossoms for each prefecture. Families and even company employees gather together under the glowing boughs of their favorite groves to eat, drink and bask in the rebirth of nature.  

The origin of this cultural custom may be found in an ancient agricultural ritual which sought to divine whether a rice harvest would be bountiful or scarce according to the manner in which the cherry trees blossomed each spring. The ritual was appropriated around the tenth century by Heian-period aristocrats because the sudden and brief appearance of the sakura blossom mirrored the transient and brilliant nature of the human pageant. Chapter seven of Genji-monogatari (源氏物語 The tale of Genji) bears the title “Hana no En“ (花宴 “The Festival of Cherry Blossoms”), and cherry-viewing is a recurrent theme throughout the novel. During medieval times, the samurai class adapted the cherry blossom as a symbol of the warrior’s readiness to die a splendid, noble death upon the field of honor. Leonard Koren connects this appreciation for nature’s ephemeral qualities with the aesthetic of wabi-sabi (侘び寂び):

Instantaneously a place - the antithesis of a formal structure – and an event are created together. The enduring and poignant (wabi-sabi) power of this image of the cherry blossom comes from our ever-present awareness of the ephemerality [sic] of it all. A moment before there were no blossoms. A moment hence there will be no blossoms…

The cherry tree is allowed to grow freely, although its branches are sometimes supported by trellises or wooden crutches when they grow beyond their strength. This is partly because the cherry does not take well to pruning, and the Japanese have a saying: sakura kiru baka, ume kirane baka (桜切る馬鹿、梅切らぬ馬鹿) - “The fool cuts the cherry, but not the plum”. The Tokyo National Museum has a famous screen dating from around the sixteenth century depicting aristocrats and warriors sharing food, drink, and comradeship beneath the burgeoning cherry blossoms, and the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya has a twelfth-century emakimono (絵巻物) of the Genji-monogatari in which the “Takegawa” segment depicts several attendants enjoying the cherry blossoms from a veranda while a nobleman peeks at them from outside. The Shūzōko hall at Chishaku-in in Kyoto houses two spectacular Momoyama-period (1568-1603) paintings of the Tōhaku Hasegawa (長谷川等伯 1539-1610) school titled Kaede-zu (楓図 “Maple Leaves Illustration”) and Sakura-zu (桜図 “Cherry Blossoms Illustration”).

Famed hanami locales include Yoshino in the Yamato mountains south of Nara, and Arashiyama, a suburb of Kyoto. Three hundred cherry trees line the approach to Kintaikyō Bridge, which spans the Nishikigawa River at Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and  Ninna-ji, Kyoto, has a cultivar of short-trunked, multi-petal cherry trees named Omura-no-sakura after the founding branch of Shingon Buddhism. A substantial, celebrated example of shidarezakura (シダレザクラ, 枝垂れ桜, itozakura イトザクラ P. pendula ‘Pendula’; weeping cherry) stands in the middle of Kyoto’s Maruyama-kōen Park, and during the blossom season, it is illuminated at night. The Japanese cherry most frequently encountered today, known officially as somei-Yoshino (ソメイヨシノ, 染井吉野, Yoshinozakura ヨシノザクラ, 吉野桜 P. Xyedoensis, Yoshino cherry) is a cultivated crossbred deciduous tree that blossoms effusively with ethereal pink flowers flushed with white in early spring. Another important cultivar is satozakura (サトザウクラ, 里桜 P. serrulata; syn. P. lamnesiana; Oriental cherry).

“Plum” flowers

Orange blossoms are famous for evoking memories, but the fragrance of plum blossoms above all makes us return to the past and remember nostalgically long-ago events.

Kenkō (兼好 1283-1350/52)

The deciduous plum tree, or more correctly, the Japanese apricot (ume 梅 Prunus mume), has been a mainstay of the Japanese garden since the Heian period (794-1185), and is mentioned in the Sakuteiki (作庭記 A Record of Garden Making). Its blossoms, ranging from white to deep pink, were a favorite motif in both Chinese and Japanese paintings, and it is often dwarfed by bonsai experts. A weeping plum, shidare-ume (枝垂れ梅), and a style of trailing the trunk parallel to the ground known as garyōbai (臥竜梅 “crawling dragon plum trees”) are also encountered, the most famous examples of which are found at Sankei-en.

The Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes) states that, “The Japanese apricot has no difficulty growing on mountain peaks, mountainsides, or in villages. Even so, since it is at home on snow-covered mountains, bear the north in mind when planting it.” The author adds that since the Japanese apricot “has an inviting fragrance, plant it in the direction from which the prevailing breezes blow with respect to the living quarters, keeping in mind the scenic effect.”

Originally,　the eastern ceremonial tree by the side of the central stairway of the main hall in a Heian-period imperial residence had been a plum, although the cherry was adopted in 834, during the reign of Emperor Nimmyō (仁明天皇 810-850), as somehow more symbolic of Heian aristocratic philosophies. The cherry is deciduous and has a very short blossoming period that was thought to represent in (陰; see Geomancy). However, the plum is still venerated as the consummate symbol of mutability. 

The plum appears as a motif in all Tenmangu shrines across Japan, and most support living specimens also. Tenjin, the kami (神) to whom the shrines are dedicated, is the deified tenth-century nobleman Sugawara no Michizane (菅原道真 845-903), whose love of the delicate plum blossom was so legendary that when he was exiled far from the capitol, his prized trees flew to Kyushu to be near him, so moved were they by his poetry! He is now the patron of scholars and calligraphers.  

In the lunar calendar, plum blossoms appear during the first lunar month, hence the plum signals the start of the new year. Plum blossoms (baika 梅花) appear around the end of January - nearly a full month before the sakurabana (桜花) - and continue through most of February, hence it is planted as a spring tree. Ume-matsuri (梅祭り梅 “plum tree festivals”) are popular holiday festivals during which people celebrate the promise of spring by drinking plum-blossom wine. Yushima-tenjin, in Tokyo, renowned for its groves of plum trees, celebrates ume-matsuri from mid February through March, and Kairaku-en, one of the three celebrated gardens of Japan, is famous for its vast plum grove.

The plum blossoms, as they scatter on the rough winds of late winter, symbolize all that is ephemeral or evanescent, and the life of a medieval samurai was often compared to the plum, which blossoms with fleeting brilliance. Ironically, the plum is often heavily pruned in order to achieve a stylized or artificial effect, often resulting in a thick, gnarled trunk with slender, almost effeminate branches.

The Japanese use the following metaphoric ranking system for “best, great, and good”: shō-chiku-bai (松竹梅 “pine, bamboo, plum”). Not surprisingly, the tree is often depicted in artwork with a light sprinkling of snow in order to emphasize that it has survived the bleak winter with quiet inner strength. During the Heian period, a bough of plum blossoms was often presented to a court lady as a sign that the poem it accompanied came from a respectable man, and artists and poets have compared womanly virtue and sweetness of heart to ume-no-hana (梅の花 plum blossoms). It is commonly used as a motif in art signifying beauty, and the nightingale is also coupled with the plum-blossom in artwork. Finally, there is an association of the plum with beliefs surrounding the mythical islands of Hōrai-tō (蓬莱島). Together with the peach and the pine, the plum is one of the three Chinese trees of life. Famous paintings include “Dove in a Plum Tree” by Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵 1584-1645) and “Kōhakubai-zu” (紅梅白梅図; red & white plum trees separated by a river) by Ogata Kōrin (尾形光琳 1658–1716), which can be seen at the Museum of Art in Atami, Shizuoka-ken.

Pine needles

One morning in Kyoto I saw an old man pruning a pine tree next to a gray plastered wall. Meticulously he plucked all downward pointing needles from the boughs, so that the bottom of each branch was clean and its top bristly. Slowly he revealed the graceful lines of the limbs and the twisted shape of the trunk. He worked all day on that tree. When I walked by again eight hours later, the pine looked much older, like the windswept trees I had seen along the northern coasts of Japan. The mottled gray wall behind the pine suggested a dense fog about to engulf the tree, its tortured form seeming to have endured a hundred harsh winters. The old man had transformed a corner of his garden into a poetic vision.

Bruce A. Coats

Learn of the pine from the pine, of the bamboo from the bamboo.

Matsuo Basshō (松尾芭蕉 1644-1694)

Matsu (松 Pinus spp.), or the pine, has been an essential staple of the Japanese garden since earliest times, and is mentioned in the Sakuteiki (作庭記 A Record of Garden Making). The following passage appears in the Senzui-nara-bi-ni-ya-gyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes):

As a rule, it is difficult to imagine a landscape garden, even one in an enclosed courtyard, without a pine tree. Only the pine tree can be planted in so many different ways to interesting effect.

The Senzui-nara-bi-ni-ya-gyō-no-zu adds that the pine finds itself at home in deep mountains, beside rivers and waterfalls, in hillside fields and on plains, although the western quadrant is the pine’s natural element. Despite its universal nature, it is “especially important that the pine be planted correctly in the auspicious direction.”

The word matsu is also a kake-kotoba (掛け言葉; a pun that has become a conventional motif) for the verb, “to wait for, to yearn for” (待つ; “to pine for,” as we might say in English). Along with the bamboo and the plum tree, the pine tree is one of the traditional Three Friends of Winter popularized in classical Chinese gardens, thus it is the archetypal tree of winter (shō-chiku-bai 松竹梅 “pine, bamboo, plum”; see “Plum flowers” above for more on this comparative system). Indeed, the pine is considered so important a tree that it appears on the backdrop of every nō stage in the country, and is never changed, regardless of the content of the plays.

In the wild, the pine is a hardy and resilient conifer, and therefore symbolizes human beings standing firm against great adversities. A distinguishing characteristic of the pine is the manner in which the needles bunch together in groups of between two and seven, depending on the species, and the male pollen cones and the female seed cones are produced on the same tree. Pines are usually planted in appropriate areas of the garden so that a mountain pine will be found among rocks, and a pine that loves water will be found spreading its branches across a pond or stream. Red pines are strongly in (陰 Ch. yin; female), thus they are often found planted in areas of a garden that are strongly yō (陽 Ch. yang; male). By a happy quirk of nature, some of the better quality inks used in sumie (墨絵 “ink painting”) are mixed from pine soot.

As an evergreen, the pine symbolizes eternity and perseverance, or “unflinching purpose and vigorous old age”, the needles are said to drive demons away, and their straightness of form indicates their “proud spirit and courage in surviving the harshest winters.” The bark of the pine tree resembles the skin of a dragon, hence the pine also signifies longevity, an association further strengthened by the beliefs surrounding the mythical island of Hōrai-tō (蓬莱島). In the Japanese garden, the pine is often planted near fuji ( , wisteria), and between 1 and 3 January, pine branches and bamboo, together with rice-straw festoons, form the New Year’s decorations called kadomatsu (門松) that are placed above or to either side of front doors and gates. Pines are also long-lived, and often appear to be much older than they really are. They are resistant to change, remain always green, and stand up to the severest natural elements. They are like old, wise and constant guides.

Pines are among the most heavily manipulated and consequently labor-intensive flora in the Japanese garden, and their sculptural quality is exploited during growth. They are generally pruned twice annually, once in the late spring or early summer, and once in the late fall or early winter. The summer pruning involves a process called midori-tsumi (緑摘み “green-picking”), where the new growth or buds are nipped or pinched away, often using only the thumb and forefinger (a messy procedure as the hands become thickly covered with matsu-yani 松やに, or pine sap). When the flower candles are nipped off, the tree wastes no energy producing cones, but instead produces a second flush of new growth. These new branchlets can also be directed, dwarfed or stunted, or simply pruned into the desired shape. The fall pruning takes place around late October or November, when the old needles are removed to leave only the freshest foliage, a practice known as momiage (もみあげ “side-burns”). A third type of pruning that gardeners use on pines is chirashi (散らし “sprinkling”), or the thinning of branches while preserving their natural growth tendencies and leaving the original shape of the tree intact. This is usually accomplished using ueki-basami (植木鋏), traditional gardener’s scissors, or with mekiri-basami (芽切り鋏 “bud-cutting scissors”), which have spring-action needle-nosed blades.

“Cloud pruning” of pines grew more popular as garden designs became more abstract in style, and such representations of nature had been mirrored in Chinese-style scroll paintings. As garden sizes decreased, greater emphasis was laid on shape and density of trees and shrubs rather than on their mass. Artistic effects such as byōbu-matsu (屏風松), in which black pines are trained to simulate the visual effect of a two-dimensional image of a pine found on folding screens known as a byōbu (屏風). This latter is intriguing, as the image of the pine on a folding screen is a stylized representation of the original taken from nature that has itself become the original for a sculptural effect in pruning and training. “This stylized, almost caricaturized image of the pine,” notes Jake Hobson, “has in turn come to influence real trees, whose trunk and branches are trained to resemble the shapes that the screen artists present.” When pines are grown into massive hedges or blocks, the term hako-matsu (箱松 “box pines”) is applied. Fine examples of both these styles may be found at Ritsurin-kōen, Takamatsu. And finally, the generic term komatsu (小松  “small pine”), mentioned in the Sakuteiki, is applied to pines that have been stunted or dwarfed for aesthetic effect.

Lengths of bamboo are sometimes tied to branches of Pinus thunbergii or Pinus densiflora to train them into certain formations, a process that demands skill and the commitment of many years. Known as katana-gare-shitate (??仕立て “...styling”), this technique manifests most often in mon-kaburi (門被り “gate-covering”), where a major branch is grown out across a gate to form a natural lintel. Not just a privacy screen for the approach to the house, the mon-kaburi creates the sensation of passing through a garden into an intimate, private space. In this sense, it serves the same purpose as the approach-way in a hermitage garden (see “Illusions of seclusion” in The hermitage garden).

Important varieties include the following: 

1. •akamatsu (赤松 Pinus densiflora, Japanese red pine): A staple of Japanese gardens since Heian times (794-1185), the red pine is symbolically female because of its softer bark and bushier foliage, and is also linked to mountain habitats. It is often planted in denser groupings on the banks of ponds and streams, or surrounding waterfalls, where its branches are encouraged to spread out over the water. Traditionally, akamatsu was favored for use in private gardens, whereas kuromatsu (see below) was planted in large estates or parks. Akamatsu is also used for bonsai.
   

1. •goyōmatsu (五葉松 Pinus parviflora, Pinus pentaphylla, Japanese white pine): Mentioned in the Sakuteiki, this is the pine that appears on willow-pattern china, and its prefix goyō (五葉) is derived from the way that five needles form each bundle, and its thick, scaly bark and heavily-needled branches lend themselves to cloud-pruning. Used for bonsai, although relatively rare in gardens as it has grayer foliage than other trees. It is planted in sheltered habitats and evokes mountain valleys.
   

1. •kuromatsu (黒松, omatsu 雄松, Pinus thunbergii, Pinus thunbergiana, Japanese black pine): This pine is symbolically male because of its rough bark and rigid needles, and sports a suitably rugged, dark purple or black trunk and thick windswept needles. It has been a staple of the Japanese garden – “the king of garden trees” – since the Heian era. Linked symbolically to the seashore and rocky coastline, its one of the most popular ornamental pines in Japan because it is hardy, can withstand almost brutal pruning and shaping, tolerates containers well, and has long been a darling of artists and bonsai masters. It is often planted in or around rocks and gravel, or beside ponds. Its corky-barked dwarf cultivar nishiki-matsu (錦松 Pinus thunbergii ‘Nishiki’), indigenous to Shikoku, is especially popular among bonsai experts, and many fine specimens originate in Kinashi-machi near Takamatsu.
   

Maple leaves

During the period Shoan, when His Majesty [Emperor Takakura 1161-1181] was only ten years old, being extremely fond of the tinted leaves of autumn, he had a little hill-garden made in the north enclosure of the Palace, and planted it with maple and “haze” trees that redden beautifully in that season, calling it “The Hill of Autumn Tints” and from morning till evening he never seemed to tire of looking at it.

The Ten Foot Square Hut

urayamashi

utsukushu natte

chiri momiji

How much I envy

the maple leaf, which turning

beautiful, then falls

   Kagami Shikō (各務支孝 1665-1731)

If the cherry is the empress of trees in the Japanese garden, then the maple or Japanese maple is the emperor. Technically, the maple tree is kaede (楓, 槭樹 Acer palmatum) in Japanese, a corruption of kaerude (蛙手 “frog’s hand”), after the shape of the leaves, is not referred to as momiji (紅葉, 黄葉; a.p. kōyō) until its leaves turn color in autumn. Prior to the Heian period (794-1185), momiji (黄葉 “yellow leaves”), was pronounced momichi; later, the kanji characters 紅葉 (“red leaves”) were substituted, and the pronunciation shifted to the current momiji.

Maples have adorned the Japanese garden since before the Heian period, and are associated with the deep mountains, rivers, and foothills of Japan. The Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes) has this to say of the maple:

Keep this tree uppermost in mind when planting. It is primarily a tree of the deep mountains… bear in mind the northeast as its principal direction. With this tree too, after locating one in a spot that corresponds to the maple’s home site, you should plant the others in accordance with the scenic effect. The maple is an especially attractive tree.

 

Indeed, maple-tree viewing in the autumn, while not as significant an activity as sakura-no-hana-no-matsuri (桜の花の祭り “cherry blossom festival”), enjoys a wide following in Japan, and the falling leaves are as much national symbols as are the pale pink blossoms of the cherry in early spring. The change in color of the leaves varies according to latitude, with the earliest changes occurring on Hokkaido around 10 October and the latest on Kyushu around 20 November. Chapter seven of Genji-monogatari (源氏物語 The tale of Genji) is titled “Momiji-no-ga” (紅葉賀 “An Autumn Excursion”), although appreciation of autumnal colors is a common motif throughout the work. There is a famous byobu-e (屏風絵; screen painting) in the Tokyo National Museum by Kanō Hideyori (狩野秀頼 fl. ca. 1564-77) titled “Maple-Viewing at Takao” which depicts such a festive party. Mount Takao near Tokyo remains a noted location for maple-viewing to this day.

As Sunniva Harte reminds us, kaede were primarily grown to “emphasize the fresh spirit of spring and the richness of the shortening autumn days.” There are numerous cultivars, although all maples belong to the species Acer, of which the genus Acer palmatum is perhaps the most frequently encountered in the Japanese garden. Other frequently encountered cultivars are: irohamomiji (イロハモモジ, いろは紅葉 A. palmatum ‘palmatum’); ōmomiji (オオモミジ, 大紅葉 A. palmatum ‘amoenum’; “big maple”); yamamomiji (ヤマモミジ, 山紅葉 A. palmatum ‘matsumurae’; “mountain maple”); and hauchiwa-kaeda (ハウチワカエデ, 羽団扇楓 A. japonicum).

Bamboo shoots

Under the general heading of bamboo and bamboo grasses (take 竹) are collected the genera Bambusaceae spp., Bambusa spp., Arundinaria spp., Phyllostachys spp., and Sasa spp. (sasa 笹, bamboo grasses). Although originally from mainland China, bamboo has long been a staple of the Japanese garden, and it long ago assumed nationalized status, and is now a symbol of Japan itself. Basil Chamberlain claimed that there were over fifty species of bamboo growing in Japan at the turn of the twentieth century, of which thirty-nine were indigenous, and the remainder were imported from either China, Korea, or the Luchu Islands. Bamboo symbolizes resilience, endurance, and modesty (its leaves curve downward). In Japan, a person who has the ability to endure all manner of challenges is said to have a “bamboo mind.” Bamboo groves, known as take-yabu (竹やぶ), can be found at temples, shrines and larger private gardens.

Bamboo also symbolizes the Buddha: Empty at the center and sheathed with strength, it conquers through yielding. In addition, bamboo is associated with Japan’s imperial family, and the poetic phrase “take no sonō no sueha” (竹の園生の末葉 “last leaves of the bamboo garden”), a reference to a large garden built by King Hsiao of Liang (周孝王 872-866 BCE), refers to the imperial bloodline.

The flexibility and resilience of bamboo is a favorite metaphor in art and philosophy where it is often depicted bending – but not breaking – beneath the weight of snow. Bamboo is also associated with good luck, and during the Osaka festival of Toka Ebisu (十日夷) held annually at Imamiya Ebisu Shrine, vendors hawk fukuzasa (福笹), bamboo branches hung with good luck symbols, old coins and rice sacks. The vertical nature of bamboo is often used to illustrate positive personality trait, and Zen Buddhists use the hollow trunk of bamboo in ink painting to represent the idea of an empty heart (mushin 無心). A fine example is the illustration called “Bamboos” by Sengai Gibon (仙厓義梵 1750-1837).

Bamboo is also one of the Chinese “Three Friends of Winter”, the other two being the pine and the plum. A comparative ranking system exists in which “the best, the great, and the good” (shō-chiku-bai 松竹梅) are often represented by the pine, the bamboo, and the plum. In art, the bamboo is often coupled with either the sparrow or the tiger, and bamboo is sometimes associated with the moon, and the moon with the dragon. There is a fable that recounts how a holy man was able to ride to the moon by cutting down a bamboo that turned into a dragon and flew him there. In Heian (794-1185) poetry, the segments of a bamboo were said to represent successive generations. Between January 1 and 3 (Shōgatsu 正月; New Year’s Celebrations), pine and bamboo, together with rice-straw festoons, form the decorations (kadomatsu 門松; var. matsutake 松竹) placed above or to either side of front doors. On 7 July, bamboo fronds are decorated with paper ornaments and prayers and placed either in gardens or hanging from house eaves during Tanabata (七夕), a celebration of the mythical annual rendezvous in the heavens of the stars Altair and Vega.

Bamboo is without doubt the most versatile plant in Japanese gardens, and according to the Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes), it should be planted in the north quadrant. It is used in gardening not only as flora, but also as a building or construction material because it neither rusts as iron does when used as piping for water, nor does it readily rot when used in fences. It is light, strong, and natural, and weathers from a deep green when freshly cut to a light golden tan when aged by sun and water. As a building material, its uses extend from exterior to interior, from the garden to the house, and from the pragmatic to the aesthetic. During late spring and early summer, the fresh young shoots (take-no-ko 竹の子 “bamboo’s children”) are served in cha-kaiseki (茶懐石) as a seasonal reminder. The fibrous outer bark is used to wrap sushi and onigiri (おにぎり　rice balls), and the leaves are used to wrap foods and sweets, and to garnish dishes.  Important varieties and types include the following:

1. •gara-dake  (柄竹): A type of bamboo whose stalks are slightly thinner than madake; their primary use is in the construction of fences as cross-tiers or top-bars in such fencers as misugaki (御簾垣).
   

1. •kuro-chiku (黒竹, kurodake, gochiku 呉竹, Phyollostachys nigra, black bamboo, Henon bamboo): Used as a decorative bamboo since Heian times, when it was often prominently displayed in containers placed by the main hall of aristocratic residences; also used in fence construction.
   

1. •hakone-dake (箱根竹 Hakone bamboo): A type of bamboo with a thin, flexible stalk used primarily for building fences.
   

1. •hō-chiku (方竹): An exotic, square-stalked bamboo grown for aesthetic reasons.
   

1. •hotei-chiku (布袋竹, gosan-chiku 五三竹, Phyllostachys aurea) fishpole bamboo, golden bamboo: A species of thin, straight bamboo often used as dense hedging or featured in pots. Dried culms are traditionally used to make fishing rods or walking sticks as the two-toned coloring is attractive. The species can be recognized easily by its nobly base, created from closely-spaced, zig-zagging internodes.   
   

1. •ma-dake (真竹 “genuine bamboo”, ku-chiku 緑竹, Phyllostachys bambusoides) giant timber bamboo, Japanese timber bamboo: A generic term for a number of common species of Japanese timber bamboo that have thin, highly flexible stalks such as yadake (矢竹, 箭竹) and hakonedake; easily split due to relatively close nodes, thus it is frequently used as a construction material for fences such as kenninjigaki (建仁寺垣) and  misugaki (御簾垣). Madake yields twice as much pulp as pine, and is the most widely-used bamboo in Asia.
   

1. •me-dake (女竹 “woman bamboo”, kawa-take カワ竹, Pleioblastus simonii) Simon bamboo, medake: Another of the main fence-building bamboo species. It is also used as hedging, and, when dried, for making screens, plant stakes, fans, and handicrafts. It was customary to plant me-dake groves on the outskirts of villages in the Kanto region.
   

1. •mōsō-chiku (孟宗竹 mōsō-dake, Phyllostachys edulis) moso bamboo: A feathery species of bamboo thought to have been introduced from China via Okinawa sometime around 1736, and used primarily for building, decorative fences, and flower vases. This species, which constitutes more than half the bamboo forests in China, grows to a prodigious 25 meters in height, and its edible shoots are shipped around the world.
   

1. •narihira-dake (業平竹, daimyō-chiku 大名竹, Semiarundinaria fastuosa) narihira bamboo: Often used in gardens because it has three branches per node.
   

1. •okame-zasa (阿亀笹, Bungo-zasa 豊後笹, fuku-zasa 福笹 “fortune sasa”, Shibataea kumasasa) okame bamboo grass: The name comes from the use in Tokyo of this bambo to support a comic female mask known as okame. It is used primarily for ground cover, but it can also be found stabilizing slopes or as low hedging.
   

Carpets of moss

Moss is at its most interesting when it covers the undulating lumps and bumps of landscaped gardens, mimicking the landscapes of Japan. Suddenly the name sugigoke takes on even more meaning, when compared with the cryptomeria-clad hills in the landscape...

Jake Hobson

Mosses have taken the place of lawns and grassy expanses in Japanese gardens since Heian times (794-1185). Koke (苔 Pogonatum spp.; Polytrichnum spp.), the generic term for moss, appears in the Sakuteiki (作庭記 A Record of Garden Making) as a natural ground cover, given the moist Japanese climate. Mosses tend to create a tranquil, aged atmosphere highly prized by garden designers because it is conducive to contemplation and meditation, thus they are particularly prevalent in dry landscape gardens, where they are used to anchor rocks and boulders to the raked gravel.

Sugigoke (杉苔 Polytrichnum commune; cedar moss, hair moss, cryptomeria moss) is the principal moss found in Japanese gardens. It takes its Japanese name from sugi (Cryptomeria japonica), or Japanese cedar, as it sports delicate, aesthetically appealing star-like leaves similar in shape to those of the cedar. Nurseries often grow this like turf in red clay soil known as akadama (赤玉 “red balls”). Sugigoke prefers shaded, subdued, moist habitats, it is a favorite in temple gardens and tea gardens. However, Saihō-ji in Kyoto is nicknamed Kokedera (苔寺 “moss temple”) and is reputed to sport over forty different varieties of moss. This paradise garden was designed by Musō Sōseki (夢窓疎石 1275-1351) in 1339, although François Berthier suggests that the moss might not be a part of the original plans:

This parasitical vegetation invaded the grounds only in the course of the Meiji era (1868-1912), at a time when the monastery did not have sufficient funds for the upkeep of the garden. In the fourteenth century the islands were carpeted with white sand. Along the borders of the pond the cherry trees would turn pink in the spring, and the maples would redden in the autumn. It was a radiant world, where one would come to walk and go boating while dreaming of the Paradise of Amida.

Lotus roots

There are two main varieties of hasu (蓮 Nelumbo nucifera), or the herbaceous lotus, one with pink flowers and the other with white flowers, although both flower around mid summer, and the petals close under the onslaught of the mid-day sun in August. The poetic term for the lotus is fuyo (ふよ).

The lotus is the sacred flower of Buddha. Buddha himself is often depicted seated in meditation atop the lotus bloom, and the Lotus Flower Sutra discloses the heart of Zen Buddhism, and claims that rebirth on a lotus flower in Jōdo (see The paradise garden) awaits those who follow the teachings with humility. The lotus, then, has been used in gardening since Buddhism arrived from China sometime in the sixth century. During the Heian period (794-1185), it was planted only when the garden was specifically designed to evoke the Pure Land Paradise of Amida-Nyorai. Since the lotus grows in shallow water, it has a strong association with the life forces: The plant grows out of the sedimentary ooze, sending its roots down into the dark mud. “The bottom of the pond,” comments Marc Keane, “viscous and dark, is symbolic to Buddhists of the mortal world we live in, its impurity and defilement. Yet, as the lotus grow, they rise above that uncleanliness and push their splendid leaves high above the water surface, rising toward the light of heaven.”   Ultimately, atop the thick stork, a single, magnificent bloom opens to the sky during the summer months, a symbol of perfection.

As a symbol, the lotus pervades Buddhist artwork and literature. Countless paintings of the Pure Land Paradise “show a lotus-filled lake traversed by a curved bridge that connects the world of mortal man with that of Amida’s paradise.” Comparison is often made of the serious man living in a corrupt world to a lotus flower growing out of the mud, although its wheel-like form accords well with Buddhist analogy of the wheel of perpetual cycles of existence. 

akikaze-ya

    hasu o chikara ni

        hana hitotsu

(anonymous)

Autumn wind

    the strength of the lotus

        in a single flower.

“Rainwater upon a lotus-leaf,” writes Lafcadio Hearn, “is a favorite subject with Japanese metal-workers, and metal-work only can reproduce the effect, for the motion and color of water moving upon the green oleaginous surface are exactly those of quicksilver.” The pearls of dew caught among the cup-like leaves are thought to symbolize enlightenment or the state of purity surrounding Buddhahood. The lotus root (renkon 蓮根) consists of four long, narrow sections with a tough, fibrous skin, which, when peeled and sliced crossways, displays a flower patter formed by inner vertical channels. The first recorded evidence of culinary use comes from the Kojiki, around 712.

Clipped azaleas

The tsutsuji (躑躅 Rhododendron obtusum), or azalea, is one of the most frequently encountered evergreen shrubs in Japanese gardens, but especially in dry landscape configurations where it is often pruned shortly after blossoming into tight cloud shapes, rounded balls, or waves. The kurume (久留米) varieties, named after Kurume on Kyushu, where they are cultivated, are especially popular. Two other popular cultivars are renge-tsutsuji (??躑躅 R. japonicum), a deciduous azalea, and yama-tsutsuji (山躑躅 R. kaempferi, “mountain azalea”), also deciduous, but sometimes left to grow into a small tree. During the Heian period (794-1185), the favored azalea was the iwa-tsutsuji (岩躑躅 “rock azalea”), a slow-growing, semi-dwarf variety that would not have been trimmed, “since fine metal gardening tools were not developed until the following, medieval period.” Azaleas flower around early summer, hence the name satsuki (五月, 皐月 “fifth month”) for Rhododendron indicum. In the old Japanese calendar, the Fifth Month was June, not May, although this slightly smaller plant is one of the earliest species to bloom.

Azaleas are usually pruned extensively into volumetric masses. As Jake Hobson explains, “Nothing can prepare Western visitors for how azaleas appear in Japanese gardens. They are molded into tightly clipped, organic shapes: blobs, doughnuts, mushrooms, billowing lumps and bumps. Call them what you will; the plants themselves become insignificant. Instead, the forms they are clipped into - and the effects they create - are what matter.”

The Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes) notes that azaleas “are woody plants that make hills and fields their principal home. Nevertheless, there is general agreement that it is good to plant azaleas as the undergrowth in the deep mountains. They are fascinating when hidden away among rocky crags or when planted on the banks above a pond. They make both yin and yang mountains their principal home.”

Bibliographical notes:

Several excellent books are available on Japanese garden flora, among which the following should not be missed:

1. •De Mente, B. L. (2006). Take: The incredible bamboo. In Elements of Japanese design: Key terms for understanding & using Japan’s classic Wabi-Sabi-Shibui concepts. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
   

1. •Kitamura & Yurio, Garden Plants in Japan (1963) Kitamura, F. & I. Yurio (1963). Garden plants in Japan. Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai.
   

1. •Kuitert, W. (1999). Japanese flowering cherries. Portland, OR: Timber Press.
   

1. •Recht, C. & M. F. Wetterwald (1992). Bamboos. Translated by M. Walters. Timber Press.
   

1. •Richards, B. W. & A. Kaneko (1988). Japanese plants: Know them & use them. Tokyo: Shufunotomo Co., Ltd.
   

1. •Schenk, G. (1997). Moss gardening: Including lichens, liverworts, and other miniatures. Portland, OR: Timber Press.
   

1. •Vertrees, J. D. & H. Suzuki (1989). Japanese maples: Momiji and kaede. Second edition. Portland, OR: Timber Press.
   

  

Nature too is sad. / See the mountain cherry-tree, / Whether old or young...    Cited in Sadler, A. L., trans. (1972). The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike: Being two thirteenth-century Japanese classics, the “Hojoki” and selections from the “Heike Monogatari”. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle; p. 135.

While the Japanese cherry may be found most anywhere...    Slawson, D. A. (1991). Secret teachings in the art of Japanese gardens: Design principles, aesthetic values. Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International Ltd.; p. [164].

The sakura is also seen as an emblem of “that delicacy of sentiment and blamelessness of life belonging to high courtesy and true knightliness,”...    Hearn, L. (1993). In a Japanese garden. In Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan. Rutland & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.; p. 356.

Basil Chamberlain notes that the sakura gained popularity during the Meiji period...     Chamberlain, B. H. (1971). Japanese things, being notes on various subjects connected with Japan. For the use of travelers and others. Rutland & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co.; p. 89.

Instantaneously a place - the antithesis of a formal structure – and an event are created together...    Koren, L. (1994). Wabi-Sabi for artists, designers, poets, and philosophers. Berkley, California: Stone Bridge Press; pp. [83]-84; n.19.

sakura kiru baka, ume kiran baka - “The fool cuts the cherry, but not the plum”...    Keane, M. P. (1996). Japanese garden design. Photographs by H. Ōhashi. Drawings by the author. Rutland & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle; p. 166, n5.

Orange blossoms are famous for evoking memories...    Keene, D. trans. (1981). Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō.　Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing; p. 19.

...the most famous examples of which are found at Sankei-en...    These trees were reputedly the models for the painting Yoroboshi (弱法師) by Shimomura Kanzan (下村 観山 1873-1930), a painting based on the nō play of the same name. Yoroboshi is a blind beggar-boy, a sort of prodigal son, who comes to beg at a temple in Osaka, and expresses the profundity of his poetic sensitivity through his appreciation of the scent of the plum blossoms.

“The Japanese apricot has no difficulty growing on mountain peaks, mountainsides, or in villages...”    Slawson, D. A. (1991); p. [156].

The author adds that since the Japanese apricot “has an inviting fragrance...”    Slawson, D. A. (1991); p. [164].

The cherry is deciduous and has a very short blossoming period that was thought to represent yin...    Takei, J. & M. P. Keane (2001). Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japanese garden. A modern translation of Japan’s gardening classic. Boston, Rutland & Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing; p. 21, n24.

One morning in Kyoto I saw an old man pruning a pine tree next to a gray plastered wall...    Coats, B. A. (1989, November). In a Japanese garden. Photographs by M. S. Yamashita. National Geographic. 176, No.5, p. 644.

Learn of the pine from the pine, of the bamboo from the bamboo... [citation needed]

As a rule, it is difficult to imagine a landscape garden, even one in an enclosed courtyard, without a pine tree...    Slawson, D. A. (1991); p. [163].

...or “unflinching purpose and vigorous old age”...    Hearn, L. (1993); p. 354)

...and their straightness of form indicates their “proud spirit and courage in surviving the harshest winters”...    Harte, S. (1999). Zen gardening. London: Pavilion Books; p. 101.

...“the king of garden trees”...    Yoshikawa, I. (1996). Japanese gardening in small spaces: Step-by-step illustrations. New York: Kodansha America Inc.; p. 21.

“This stylized, almost caricaturized image of the pine,” notes Jake Hobson...”    Hobson, J. (2007). Niwaki: Pruning, training and shaping trees the Japanese way. Portland & London: Timber Press; p.35.

During the period Shoan, when His Majesty [Emperor Takakura 1161-1181] was only ten years old...    Keene, D. trans. (1981); p. 92.

How much I envy / the maple leaf... Translation adapted from http://thegreenleaf.co.uk/hp/Shiko/00shikohaiku.htm. Retrieved Jan 3, 2011.

Prior to the Heian period (794-1185), momiji (黄葉 “yellow leaves”), was pronounced momichi...    The kanji 黄葉 are now almost exclusively reserved for literature.

Keep this tree uppermost in mind when planting...    Slawson, D. A. (1991); p. [165].

As Sunniva Harte reminds us, kaede were primarily grown...     Harte, S. (1999); p. 27.

...and the poetic phrase “take no sonō no sueha” (竹の園生の末葉 “last leaves of the bamboo garden”), a reference to a large garden built by King Hsiao of Liang...    Keene, D. trans. (1981); p. 4, n1.

A feathery species of bamboo thought to have been introduced from China sometime about or after 1238...    Chamberlain, B. H. (1971); p. 59.

Moss is at its most interesting when it covers the undulating lumps and bumps of landscaped gardens...    Hobson, J. (2007). Niwaki: Pruning, training and shaping trees the Japanese way. Portland & London: Timber Press; p. 123.

This parasitical vegetation invaded the grounds only in the course of the Meiji era (1868-1912)...    Berthier, F. (2000). Reading Zen in the rocks: The Japanese landscape garden. Translated and with a Philosophical Essay by G. Parkes. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press; p. 25.

“The bottom of the pond,” comments Marc Keane...    Keane, M. P. (2002). The art of setting stones & other writings from the Japanese garden. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press; p. 85.

Countless paintings of the Pure Land Paradise “show a lotus-filled lake traversed by a curved bridge...”    Takei & Keane (2001); p. 48.

akikaze-ya / hasu o chikara ni / hana hitotsu...    Cited in Mayhew, L. (1985). Monkey's raincoat: Linked poetry of the Basho School with haiku selections. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle; p. 129.

“Rainwater upon a lotus-leaf,” writes Lafcadio Hearn...    Hearn, L. (1993); p. 362.

During the Heian period (794-1185), the favored azalea was the iwatsutsuji (岩躑躅 “rock azalea”)...    Takei & Keane (2001); p. 47.

As Jake Hobson explains, “Nothing can prepare Western visitors for how azaleas appear in Japanese gardens...    Hobson, J. (2007); p.77.

The Senzui-narabi-ni-yagyō-no-zu (山水並びに野行の図 Illustrations for Designing Mountain, Water, and Hillside Field Landscapes) notes that azaleas “are woody plants...”    Slawson, D. A. (1991); p. [165].