| |
The Art at the Heart of Japanese Garden Design

Evoking the beauty of nature is at the heart of this art form I learned in
Japan. The stately, one-sided form of this Virginia pine conveys its adaptation
to a mountainside habitat, with prevailing winter winds from the northwest. Note
that as a tree ages, its branches gradually lengthen and succumb to the
force of gravity, creating a conical shape. Shaded, weaker branches die, letting
in more light and revealing the structural beauty of those branches that remain.
In Japanese gardening, the beautiful character of each tree is revealed through
selective pruning. Similar techniques keep the tree in proper scale to the scene
being depicted.
Painting of Priest Myoe meditating in a Japanese red pine, Kozanji, Kyoto, Japan
Triple-trunked Scots pine, Garden of Quiet Listening, Carleton College, 1976 Scotch pine in 1988, right after selective pruning Scots pine in 2001, just prior to selective pruning. It has been kept at the same height for the past 37 years through annual pruning.
If you see a resemblance between this pine and the following one in the Carleton garden, it's because Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora) are close relatives, linked through an intermediate species, Pinus sylvestriformis, native to the Caucasus and China.
I found this Scots pine in the local nurseryman's front yard. It has three vertical trunks, regrown from lower branches after the tree was cut as a Christmas tree. I thinned out about one third of the crowded branches, and the tree was brought in and planted by tree spade when the garden was made in 1976.
Painting of Priest Myoe meditating in a Japanese red pine, Kozanji, Kyoto, Japan
If you see a resemblance between this pine and the following one in the Carleton garden, it's because Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Japanese red pine (Pinus densiflora) are close relatives, linked through an intermediate species, Pinus sylvestriformis, native to the Caucasus and China.
(web page under construction)
|