Help with future Japanese garden

Discussion in 'Japanese Gardens' started by palerider, Mar 13, 2007.

  1. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Hello my name is shayne,

    I'm starting a project in my back yard and want to come up with something towards a " Japanese style garden " I just finished my front yard with a 3,000 gallon koi pond redo and landscape. So now it's time to knock the back yard out. The back yard currently has a concrete stained ( black ) edge with two stone paths and grass ( Also a cherry tree I want to keep ) Things I want to bring to the back yard is listed below....

    *White and Black pine
    *Japanese Maple
    *Not sure what shrubs yet ( need help with some names )
    *4 big size granite rocks
    *Dry garden with raked gravel
    *Some type of juniper ( need help with names )
    *And anything else you would think would look nice

    Here is a rough and I mean rough drawing of the back yard. Also a picture of the pond


    Pale
    Salt Lake City, Utah
    Zone 5-7
     

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  2. george nesfield

    george nesfield Member Maple Society

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Shayne,
    Post a photo of your garden to give me a better idea of the layout ,as for your rocks you said you wanted four big size granit rocks you garden will allways look better if you work in odd numbers ie 3, 5, 7, rocks
    George.
     
  3. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    George just sent ya an email to your personal account......
     
  4. whis4ey

    whis4ey Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Don't write e mails to each other guys
    Let us all see what you propose .....
     
  5. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Well I was not getting much help here with a Japanese garden design. So thats when it turned in to an email game with me and George. Here are some picture.

    1st is what I started with
    2nd is grass and dirt and curbing
    3rd is George's design
    I have so far planted about 14 different trees/shrub/ground cover and working on more.

    List
    Black pines
    Mugo pines
    Blue juniper
    Japanese Maple * Tamukeyama
    Box woods * Korean
    Japanese yew
    Pondarosa pines
    Green giants
    Scotch pines
    Hetz juniper
    Bird nest spruce
    Weeping blue atlas cedar
    Irish Moss
    English Ivy and much more just can't think of it right now.

    I will show pictures of everything planted soon!

    Shayne
     

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  6. george nesfield

    george nesfield Member Maple Society

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi,
    Well done Shayne I am pleased that you have started on your Japanese garden.
    George
     
  7. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Well it's a start, nothing like a real Japanese gardens. But those gardens started out little and have grown to what you see now. I know mine will take years of pruning and alot of love. The grass in the back yard will one day be my new pond. By then what i have planted should be nice and grown out. Plus more will be added in the furture ;)

    Shayne
     

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  8. george nesfield

    george nesfield Member Maple Society

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Shayne,
    Great to see you have made a start.
    George.
     
  9. whis4ey

    whis4ey Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Great blank canvas Shayne and a good beginning
    Take it one step at a time and you won't go wrong
    Even George was known to change his mind at times :)
     
  10. george nesfield

    george nesfield Member Maple Society

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Sam,
    Who ME! I am allways changing my mind that's why a lot of my shrubs and acers are in BIG pots so that I can move them around, when ever I want to change the scene
    George.
     
  11. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Thanks for the at-a-boy :) I agree with you on taking it one step at a time. Now I will watch it slowly grow an add more down the road. Just started working on a nice missippi marble rock path. Once again thank you George


    Shayne
     
  12. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    One good thing about Japanese gardens is that the pros who tend them regularly remove overaged or otherwise "wrong" plants.

    A few ideas (I used to live in Cody, Wyoming)
    1. hardiness and use of local flora. The Japanese mostly use native species in gardens, and it isn't a bad idea to use some Rocky Mt/Great Basin plants. Potentilla fruticosa, Ribes, others?
    2. If Japanese maples aren't hardy, try Amur maples.
    3. Get the stones right. There's plenty of good books on how to arrange them, or find a cheap flight to Portland and look over the Japanese garden there. One principle is to arrange the vertical ones in groups, and bury them deeply enough to look rooted.
    4. Ivy is sort of evil.
    5. Grass is OK in Japanese gardens! Japanese lawns are ratty looking by US standards, though.
    6. Atlas cedar seems an odd choice. Is Salt Lake balmy enough for them to be hardy?
    7. Pruning pines is an art, but a learnable one. Timber Press (Portland, again) has a new book on Japanese pruning. I haven't seen it yet, but it may be useful.

    I'm new here, hadn't seen the earlier posts.
     
  13. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Everything that I have planted will grow great in salt lake city. Everything that has been planted is doing great " new growth and bud scales " About the rocks/stones, they are just stones left over from my pond build. I will look into how to place them when I start on my zin garden and really start getting wild with the rock work. About Portland, I lived there for 8 years of my life "Troutdale right on the Columbia River" and have spent a couple different days at the Portland Japanese garden. This site shows a lot of JG in America www.jgarden.org/gardens.asp?CONT=N_AMERICA. About the Atlas cedar they are all over this city. So I think it will be fine. Thank you for the heads up, I will be reading up on rock placement and learning pruning skills as I speak at >> www.aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/pruning/pruning.html

    Shayne

    Got any pictures of your old yard in cody? or your new one in FL?
     
  14. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Sounds great. For what it's worth the board at the Portland garden became dissatisfied, maybe 10 years ago, with the sand-and-stone garden and had a prominent designer redo it. Not long later, everything was put back as it had been, with plenty of concrete to discourage future mischief. The lesson: good stones can be rearranged until everything's right.

    I'd have to digitize a photo of the old Cody townhouse back yard. Veggies at the back, perennials on the side, and a couple bushes for winter interest. Had good luck with Asiatic hybrid lilies, Camassia, assorted perennials. The untreated water line at the back (with a low-pressure irrigation system on a timer) was great--I could be out all week and come back with everything looking good.

    The current one is sort of an artless mess. I do have a thriving beach sunflower bed--they're a local mat-forming species. They're enjoying the spring drought! The gravel strip up against the house is intended to make the termite control people happy.
     

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    Last edited: May 22, 2007
  15. ckkone

    ckkone Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Shayne,

    Weeping Blue Atlas does great in SLC. Also ground cover like Wooly Thyme and scotch moss do well. Enjoy your garden!
     

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  16. Alex of the outback

    Alex of the outback Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Shayne,

    I live in Wyoming and go to S.L.C. alot. I also have designed a wonderful japanese garden in Colorado which is similar to S.L.C. 's cimate. One thing to always consider is that you want to emulate nature in miniature. So try to make things flow in a natural way. If you have any views of neighbors yards, plant your area as a foreground to that background. I put a lovely plum tree in front of an ugly playhouse in the neighbors yard. Now we do not see that, and plum blossoms smell the best of any of our flowering trees. We also use their perfect lawn and tall trees as part of our view by planting small foreground to taller background (in our yard) which flow perfectly into their very tall back-background. It makes it look like a great big valley (in miniature).
    Also, walkways can be surrounded by pfisters (sp?) to look like you are stepping along the tops of trees. Very cool! I put that coming in the back gate, along a hill where other plants were hard to keep watered.
    If you go to a book store and peruse Japanese garden books. Find some pictures you would like to emulate in your garden, then adapt it to your needs and you will find tons of ideas just right for you. Does S.L.C. have a city botanical garden with a japanese garden area? Denver has one with many cool ideas for plantings. And they give gardening help too.
    Another very cool thing everybody loves is I added rock "islands" into my raked rocks area, surrounded them (although not completely surrounded, just in sections that look natural) with irish moss, so they look like real islands in a sea of rocks. Then I rake the rocks around each island like ripples from a thrown rock, while the rest of the rocks are raked in straight lines.
    The idea is a Japanese art (sorry I don't remember the name of it) of replicating real island groupings in miniature, in your garden.
    Much luck, and ENJOY! I really loved creating mine.
     
  17. palerider

    palerider Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Thanks for the heads up, I really like the help and will use your advice "The zen garden/rock island is next on my long list". Most of the stuff I have planted will be pruned/trimmed back in the years to come. I have alot more to learn and alot more to plant in the coming years. Please post some pictures of your Japanes Garden. Once again thanks.

    Shayne

    Check this site out http://koishack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8814
     
  18. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    A Japanese garden in Wyoming!

    Raked gravel and stones are used in a variety of gardens, not just the strict Zen ones. A neat book is "Gardens of Gravel and Sand" by Leonard Koren, Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley. The photos are black and white. Mine cost 2,730 yen.

    Finding the right sort of gravel is a problem. The Kyoto stuff is kind of coarse and holds up better than sand. Someone in British Columbia sells comparable rotted granite, but that would probably be horribly expensive. I bet something suitable could be found in Utah.

    I don't know if anyone in SLC would be into rock gardening, but some of the Rocky Mountain cushion plants like Petrophyton or Shoshonea or Aquilegia jonesii (I'm doing these names from memory) could make extremely cool Japanese garden subjects.
     
  19. smartcat

    smartcat Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Another great book on Japanese gardening is called "SERENE GARDENS-creating Japanese design and detail in the western garden" by Yoko Kawaguchi, 2000, Trafalgar Square Publishing. With it, you can learn how to put the essential concepts of Japanese gardening to work in your own garden. I'm finding some of the concepts very useful in designing my NW fusion garden in Seattle burbs.
     
  20. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Timber Press is having a 30% off sale. Good time to buy their book on Japanese-style pruning!
     
  21. Karalyn

    Karalyn Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Hi Sam!,
    Are you the one that directed me to this website! Thank you very much if you did! And somehow I've seen George's website as well, so I don't know if you are responsible for that or some other resource.

    Palerider--Welcome, Neighbor! Are you ready for visitors to see your gardens? I'm heading that way from Dallas. DH and I are bringing home a work truck from Texas that we bought on EBAY. I'll be visiting my sister to see her new baby on the way home. She lives in Kaysville. I'm a nice person, right SAM? Anyway, just thought I would ask and all you can say is "No". ;)
     
  22. Karalyn

    Karalyn Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Shayne, I thought you sounded familiar, at least Pale Rider does. I've been on Koi Shack as well. Maybe you are the one that linked me to Georges website.

    I read that you lived in Troutdale. I've been desiring to go that way to visit all the wholesale nurseries they have in that area and also visit some clematis growers.
    I've been to the portland Japanese Gardens as well and really loved it. It seems that all the books by Sunset or others on Japanese Gardens are from the Portland Japanese Garden.

    I really enjoyed reading about your Japanese Garden creations and your photos are super! You work fast!
     
  23. Karalyn

    Karalyn Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    BTW, FYI not for Shayne, Utah has the best stones all over that state and granite gravel should be easy to find as well.

    I was able to collect some rock from the back of my sister's yard that butts up against the railroad tracks. She doesn't know the gold mine I found. REally pretty rosy sparkly stones. I don't know if the rail road dumped them or the builder's of their neighborhood. But they were right next to her chain linked fence and partially buried by leaves. I paid my nephew and buddy 5 bucks each when they helped me, but they loved it because they got to do what boys love to do. Dig in dirt, climb under fences, work together on problem solving, being sneaky meaning my sister didn't know they were on the other side of the fence next to the railroad tracks which are built up on a mound. I'm a bad Auntie! But I raised 4 sons and have 3 brothers.

    I also found railroad spikes that were bent or rusty or just plain cool looking. That was while I walked the track to get at some Horse's tail growing behind my sister's fence and the below the railroad tracks. It gets a lot of moisture there and afternoon shade.

    Can you tell I'm a pondlover and love rocks! ;D
     
  24. Dave-Florida

    Dave-Florida Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    Offhand, Auckland seems abundantly warm to grow a very authentic Japanese garden outdoors. Just a matter of finding a comparable climate in Japan, perhaps using something like http://www.klimadiagramme.de/index_6.html
     
  25. Karalyn

    Karalyn Active Member

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    Re: Help with furture Japanese garden

    IM000194.JPG IM000196.JPG

    I hope you don't mind me posting a couple of photos of my 4th redo of my koi pond.
    This is from 2002 and I practiced attaching it. One of them shows a Ponds Supplies of America 'Purifalls' . It has been fitted with an extra inlet pipe to add volume to it from the two upper pools.

    The other photo shows a view from our deck facing northeast of our backyard. Basically we are testing the Purifalls and a pump or two, I think. It's been awhile.
     

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