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Gardens
Home » Japan » Japan - Activities and Attractions » GardensThe Japanese art of garden design has been an important part of the Japanese culture for many centuries. Traditional Japanese landscape gardens can be broadly categorized into three types, Tsukiyama Gardens (hill gardens), Karesansui Gardens (dry gardens) and Chaniwa Gardens (tea gardens).
1) Tsukiyama Gardens
These gardens use ponds, streams, hills, stones, trees, flowers, bridges and paths to create a miniature reproduction of natural scenery which is often a famous landscape in China or Japan. The name refers to the creation of artificial hills.
2) Karesansui Gardens
Karesansui gardens use the same concept of reproducing natural landscapes but in a more abstract way by using stones, gravel, sand and sometimes a few patches of moss to represent mountains, islands, boats, seas and rivers. Karesansui gardens are strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism and are used for meditation.
3) Chaniwa Gardens
Chaniwa gardens are built for tea ceremonies. They contain a tea house where the actual ceremony is held and are designed in aesthetic simplicity according to the concepts of sado (tea ceremony).
These gardens typically feature stepping stones that lead towards the tea house, stone lanterns and a stone basin (tsukubai), where guests purify themselves before participating in the ceremony.
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