The Japanese Garden

Sophie Walker trained as a garden designer in Britain, displaying her skills to acclaim at the epitome of English gardening institutions: the Chelsea Flower Show. To broaden her design skills, she studied Japanese style gardening. She describes her new book, “The Japanese Garden,” as essentially a workbook of those studies.

The author presents a series of chapters on different themes with essays by others from many backgrounds interspersed and augmenting her studies. Topics vary widely, from our relationship with nature or the tenets of Buddhism as they apply to gardens, to the use of courtyard gardens or favorite flowers and trees. Concluding each of her chapters are photographs of gardens that embody concepts she presents.

Throughout, she looks for connections or contrasts with Western (European and American) traditions, or how icons of Western design or art have been influences by Japanese traditions, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Claude Monet and, in present day, David Hockney. She observes, “visiting a Western cultural landmark – a palace or cathedral – cultural and historic context is unavoidable. But in the Japanese garden, context is deliberately confused, as is scale.”

Excerpted from the Fall 2018 Arboretum Bulletin.