Within the space to
two days, the chance to see two stupendous examples of Japanese
horticulture, but so totally different, and however superlative they
were, neither of them the kind of thing I could live with myself. One
of them was a recently made, but not modern (important distinction
this!) version of a traditional garden – the Adachi Museum near
Matsue, and the other the Vogelpark, also near Matsue, a popular
visitor attraction, catering to mass entertainment.
 | |
| The planting in the middle could well be the kind of habitat planting that is normally absent from Japanese gardens |
On my last trip to
Japan, I wrote about some critical reflections on the traditional
Japanese gardens that make so many visitors to the country go weak at
the knees. Interesting to re-reflect. Part of the problem with
looking at Japanese gardens is to see them afresh, as we have so many
imitation or Japanese-inspired gardens that get in the way. One of
the problems for Bris especially, is that we have virtually no 'real'
Japanese gardens accessible to the public (unlike in the US or
Germany), but instead some kitschy early 20th century fake
ones and a plethora of truly horrendous recent fake ones – take one
imitation lantern, a pile of rocks and a maple and you have a
Japanese garden.
Now, rather
intriguingly, looking at many Japanese front gardens, there are many
folk here who do exactly the same thing, except that they have
niwaki-pruned trees too, which hardly anyone back home can do. The
effect is the same though, a few rocks dotted about, with some
dwarfed trees, a lantern and there it is – absolutely none of the
sophisticated spatial relations we get to see in the classic gardens.
And in many cases, with the equivalent of garden gnomes: little
concrete statues.
The 'great' gardens of
Japan express a sophisticated aesthetic of spatial relations.
Designers in the US have always been well ahead of British ones in
taking this on board. The ones which are perhaps most inspiring are
the ones for small spaces: the iconic Ryoan-ji, and the much less
well-known but equally sophisticated Ryogen-in and Daisen-in (the
latter cannot be photographed). One my last visit, the larger ones,
e.g. Tenryu-ji and Gingaku-ji, came across as like stage sets –
look at them from the wrong angle and they seem empty and sterile,
the right way and everything falls into place.
 |
| Little stone chaps like this are a big part of popular garden culture |
It was interesting on
this trip, to accompany a group, including several working garden
designers (all Argentinian). The Adachi Gallery garden blew us all
away on first sight: like the art in the gallery, it is simply a
modern take on traditional forms, but done on a far more generous
scale and in fact incredibly well done – and immaculately
maintained (which always helps). In looking at it, I found a few
places which were almost approaching what you could call
'naturalistic' planting, in that they consisted of low shrubby plants
with no clipping – they could have been bilberries and heather in
Scotland. They counterposed the über-control of the rest of it and
the clean white, unraked, gravel that made such a good foreground.
The Adachi garden is
simply the most perfect and accomplished garden in the Japanese
tradition, and is apparently widely appreciated as such. And yet, as
one of my colleagues on the trip, Amalia Robredo, commented, it is
completely lifeless, there being no movement. Unlike the Japanese
countryside, which at this time of year seems to sprout miscanthus
grass everywhere, there are not perennials and no grasses. Yuko
Tanabe Nagamura, a horticulture colleague from Nagasaki, who was
accompanying us on the trip, told us that the Japanese gardening
public do not appreciate grasses and perennials, seeing them only as
weeds.
The Adachi garden did
make me think of Mediterranean region possibilities. Back in the
spring I went to visit a couple of gardens made by Miguel Urquijo and
Fernando Martos, which made extensive use of low clipped native
sub-shrubs, but with grasses and perennials as lively moving
contrast. Clipped shrubs and conifers were the main element, and I
realised how it might be possible to use Mediterranean sub-shrubs and
conifers in a similar way, with rocks and gravel, but adding a more
naturalistic element. If I ever get the chance to make garden in such
a climate, this might be a good place to start.
The other piece of
superlative horticulture in the Matsue area was Vogelpark, designed
to be a family day out visitor attraction, with bird of prey flying
displays, twice-daily penguin walkabouts, etc etc., along with a vast
greenhouse, the contents of which bowled us over. We walked in and
our jaws just dropped. OK, none of us like big bright brash begonias,
but to see them grown on this scale and this well, we could not but
fail to admire them. Streptocarpus, coleus, fuchisa, pelargonium and
begonias too, all on a massive scale, all incredibly well-grown and
in many cases clearly quite old plants. It was all very
old-fashioned, like something out of the Victorian era. But inspiring
to see so much good horticulture, and particularly re. the amazing
collection of begonias, so good to see such a good collection of
plants, such genetic diversity. It made Wisley seem very tame and
unambitious in comparison.
This kind of full-on
public horticulture is every bit as Japanese as the classic raked
sand and clipped conifer gardens, the same total commitment to
quality, and yet a side of the country's gardening we rarely
appreciate. The fact that to us it is unfashionable is no excuse for
ignoring it.
