Small Scale Japanese Dry Landscape Garden

Dry Landscape and Zen Garden

Creating Your Own Dry Landscape Zen Garden.

Let’s discuss how you’d create a kare-sansui, a small scale dry landscape garden and integrate it into your existing home gardens. The history of Japanese gardens and the Chinese influences require a life-time of study and the design of these gardens follow strict cultural traditions. However, my goal is for you to take certain elements of these cultural influences and work them into your own garden where these elements will be determined by your interpretations, space allocations and budget. I will discuss how to create ‘ginhsanada or silver sand open sea; a surface of white sand raked in wave patterns’.

The features you might want to include in your design will be a reflection of your personality. A zen garden should be a place of quiet isolation, a space where a single soul may go for a daily meditation or to just sit alone or with a friend and contemplate the daily activities or life in general. It doesn’t have to be totally isolated like a different room in your garden, but creating a sense of isolation is necessary to achieve your goal. You might like to have tea in your garden, so creating a place to have a table and chairs should be in your plan. You’ll want to surround it with appropriate plantings though in some planting zones this will not be possible. There are some Asian variety plants that can survive in Zone 4, but a majority of them will only survive to –20 F. and at that temperature it will still put a strain on some of your plants. However, I have created Zone 5 Japanese gardens with great success.

Elements, stock and supplies for your dry landscape garden and surrounding spaces.

• Create fixed vantage points (explained further below)
• White sand (pool filter sand)
• 7 stones of varying sizes for your dry landscape garden
• Wood or granite bench, cafe table & chairs or open sitting area
• Flat patio stones (blue stone in photo) or pathway stones
• Two or 3 large anchor shrubs or small trees of Asian variety
• Asiatic lilies, asian woodland plants
• Small wooden rake for your ‘ginhsanada’
• Quality landscape fabric and screened sand for drainage

Zen garden from lower path

Fixed Vantage Points

Create your garden so it may be viewed from more than one vantage point, such as: A pergola placed at the end of a pathway lined by rows of evergreen, rhododendron or japanese lilac where you may sit and contemplate the dry landscape garden from a distance. A granite bench screened by a Japanese maple giving a filtered view of the garden or a bench directly adjacent to the dry landscape. There are many possibilities depending on your design or your existing garden. The ghosts of Zen priests and ancient samurai will be looking with you, so design with them in mind.

Eastern View - Umbrella Pine & Maple

Implementation Hints:

• Make sure your site is well drained. Use at least a 6′-12″ of screened sand as a base for your patio or garden path stones. If you want to grow things between the patio stones add some screened loam on the top 2 inches before installing the stone.
• Decide the dimensions of your dry landscape garden and in the sand base dig down about 4″ and lay multiple layers of landscape fabric over the excavated area. Lay the fabric in multiple directions. 3 layers should be enough though 4 won’t hurt.
• Backfill your excavated area with white sand which you can purchase at most swimming pool supply stores as filter sand. Make sure it is white.
• Place your 7 stones in any array you like creating islands in the sand. If you decide to create a larger dry garden then you may create a stepping stone bridge across the landscape.
• Another element you might wish to add is a dry waterfall.
• 3 anchor plants might include a Japanese Tree Lilac, Japanese Maple, Japanese Umbrella Pine or a Miss Kim Lilac. There are many alternatives. Pick your plants carefully and monitor their growth habits and prune to suit the space. You might want arching branches, topiary evergreen or low plants that have spreading habits.

Asiatic Lilly

I cannot design your garden for you. You must do research and below is a wonderful book to start your journey. Please send me your photos if you do decide to incorporate some Japanese design into your gardens, especially a dry landscape garden.

Japanese Gardens by Gunter Nitschke is an excellent book but appears to be out of print and not available through Amazon.com. There are books available from Amazon that will be very helpful.

Tagged as: Asian Inspirations