Have you ever wondered if any of the shrubs in the Seattle Japanese Garden are native to our area? Here’s a look at some iconic Pacific Northwest native shrubs. They’re planted at the south end of our garden – in the teahouse, mountain and woodland areas.
This evolving “culture of wood” was very different from that of the West. In Japan, wood’s susceptibility to fire, moisture and extremes of weather was embraced – as was the notion of transience (setsuna).
When working on these wild plants, we are not trying to shape them. We are allowing them to grow “where they will” and simply making adjustments and clarifications.
In spring of 2017, the Seattle Japanese Garden launched Free First Thursday and Saturday Family Day programs to provide more regular opportunities for our community to engage with the garden and learn about horticulture, Japanese traditions, and the various arts inspired by our beautiful landscape.
When Juki Iida considered the challenge of building a garden overseas, he described the American counterparts he anticipated working with as “gardeners”. An article published in the Journal of the Japanese Institute of Landscape Architects solves the challenge of translating this term, and reveals what Iida likely thought of the team he would assemble to build the Japanese garden in Seattle.
A display board about the Seattle Japanese Garden is the newest exhibition at the Hyogo Prefecture Museum of Nature and Human Activities, near Kobe. This exhibition is the work of Dr. Hiroki Akazawa, a senior researcher in Landscape Architecture who spent the past year as a visiting scholar at UW.
