Myth:
Japanese gardens and Chinese gardens are similar.
Fact:
Those two garden styles are very different!
Myth:
Blooming azaleas are an important part of a Japanese garden.
Fact:
In Japan azaleas are used as trimmed shrubs. In the Czech Republic azaleas never grow into such size and so their trimming is not used. Actually by trimming them you cut off most of the buds. Neither professional literature on Japanese gardens, nor Japanese poetry says anything about blooming azaleas. In Japan nobody cares for such extreme colours in particular. The Japanese are fond of delicate flower colours.
Myth:
Stone lanterns are traditionally used for illuminating the garden.
Fact:
Stone lanterns are only decorative components which indicate the view point of the garden and create a link from the natural to the man-created. In Japan candles or electric lighting are very rarely used.
Myth:
A Japanese garden is also called “Zen Garden”.
Fact:
The term “Zen Garden” is a Western invention. In Japan it is not used, as Zen Buddhism and gardens are not linked.
Myth:
Bonsais are a part of the Japanese garden culture.
Fact:
Bonsai (a tree in a bowl) is a hobby that has only little in common with a garden. Bonsai is neither put nor planted in a garden. Usually they are placed on simple shelves in front of a neutral background to be seen better. The so-called garden bonsais are trees in various sizes, usually pines, that are shaped using fixed methods. Then it is better to speak about “shaped pines“.
Myth:
All components in a Japanese garden symbolise something else.
Fact:
Trying to explain everything in a Japanese garden in a symbolical way usually gets us nowhere. It´s true there are Japanese gardens whose description contains symbols, but those were mostly interpreted later in order to make the garden seem more interesting.
Myth:
Stone lanterns, water tanks, Buddha statues and pagodas are typical for all Japanese gardens.
Fact:
A Japanese garden may well do without all those components, but it can hardly do without stones, water or gravel and shaped shrubs. Stone lanterns and water tanks are used very little, and if they are, then only as accents. Pagodas and Buddha statues are almost never used.
Myth:
Red Torii gates and bridges are typical parts of a Japanese garden.
Fact:
If you were in Japan, you certainly saw those components in only one context: as religious symbols in front of Shinto shrines. Shinto is the oldest Japanese religion. It influences Japanese culture, e. g. the worshipping of rocks and old trees as living beings is probably connected with today's deep attitude of the Japanese to special stones. Other cultural elements, such as tea ceremony, flower arranging, archery, calligraphy, and garden art are much more influenced by a different life philosophy: at the shogun and samurai times they were based on Zen Buddhism and the ethics of loyalty, ellipticalness, austerity, simplicity and self-discipline. There was no point for anything fancy and decorated in that life philosophy, and that is how almost all the gardens in Japan are. It is as if crosses were raised in our gardens.
Myth:
Trees in a garden - pines, junipers, yews - should be shaped into round tassels on bare branches.
Fact:
95% shaped trees in Japan are pine trees - usually Pinus thunbergii and Pinus parviflora with green needles. Old pines formed on the coast by the weather and old ink drawings are a natural model for the shaping method. There are forty shaping methods, very detailed ones. Unfortunately those are not generally known here and there is also a lack of aesthetic education.
Perhaps that is why garden centers and garden nurseries offer trees with branches trimmed like poodles, which is very rare in Japan.
Actually - in modern Japanese gardens coniferous trees are hardly used.
Myth:
Only Japanese plants may be grown in a Japanese garden.
Fact:
The plant selection should be focused especially on the following features:
- Plants must be planted in the habitat natural for their growth.
- Trees should not be too large and perennials too lush.
- Trees should be of delicate dainty natural growth.
- Attractive autumn colouring is good, Japanese maples are the most suitable trees in this respect.
- Natural trait of perennials (grasses, ferns, botanical species of perennials) is very important.
- A larger amount of flowers and colours should be avoided
Myth:
A dry garden with raked gravel area was used for meditation by monks.
Fact:
All Japanese monasteries have closed meditation rooms in monastery buildings. While meditating one often faces a wall.
In Japan the first gardens created in monasteries were often criticized as being too secular. They were established much later.
Myth:
Koi carps belong to every Japanese garden.
Fact:
A Japanese garden tradition goes back at least a thousand years. They started to breed Koi carps only about 200 years ago.
