East Meet West: Concepts in Garden Design

By J. A. Young

Zen Gardens - Stone Gardens - Italian Gardens - English Cottage Gardens

A typical Zen garden illustrates the influences of Buddhism, Shintoism and Taoism to form a spiritual landscape that is more than simply a delight for the eyes. Creating a Zen garden combines principles of nature with traditional Eastern spiritual beliefs to teach garden visitors how to look at a landscape in a different light. The subsequent article discusses various elements of Zen gardens with advice for designing and installing Zen features into the landscape.

If you are not familiar with the Eastern principles of yin and yang, it is helpful to think of them as opposites. Yin is dark and feminine; yang is light and masculine. They are night and day; they are opposite sides of a coin, if you will, but both are necessary to make up a whole. A Zen garden aims to incorporate many yin and yang features into the garden. For example, a typical Zen design is a cherry tree beside a stone wall. The cherry tree changes throughout the growing season, illustrating the transient nature of life, while the stone wall signifies endurance or permanence.

Likewise, a rock feature such as a stone lantern might be challenged by a rippling brook beside it. Pairing opposites throughout the Zen landscape is the overriding design principle behind these gardens. Of course, there are thousands of ways to reflect yin and yang (or in and yo as they are known in Japan) in these gardens while at the same time incorporating traditional Oriental elements. Eastern gardens typically seek to reflect or imitate nature, unlike Western gardens, which generally can be seen as man's attempt to control nature.

Opposites are relatively easy to install in the garden. Consider vertical features like birdbaths, trellises, arbors, trees and pagoda style gazebos set beside horizontal features like a path of flat river stones, a flowerbed, a garden pond or a sea of grass. Pairing any such features allows visitors to meditate upon them and interpret them in any number of ways. Color choice is another way to incorporate principle of yin and yang into your garden. Offer a shady patch of trees across from a most sunny expanse of garden. Plant a few bright yellow blossoms (yang) near dark green plants like ferns (yin).

Furthermore, many elements of the Zen garden are placed to encourage reflection about life and the universe. Features are artfully placed to reflect something not only of nature but also about life. For example a rock placed in the middle of a stream might represent the earth amidst a tide of change. A small basin might represent man's desire for purity. Moss growing atop a decaying log might signify nature reclaiming man upon his demise. In this way, the gardener's views become very pronounced in the garden depending on how he represents them with natural elements.

Finally, install features that suggest something beyond what they are. A small cascade is not simply a trickle of water - it is energy and movement. A white rose is not simply a rose - it is innocence or inviolate beauty. Seeing natural elements with spiritual eyes requires some reflection so be sure to incorporate rustic seating into your landscape for visitors.

Visitors to your garden become features of your Zen garden themselves. A young girl stands besides a new planting of bamboo - they are both new to the world; they will blossom together. An elderly man stands beside a circular pool; he is completing his cycle of life. You, the gardener, bend over a flowerbed to weed - you are healing your garden and possibly your soil as you toil under the sun. There are many Oriental features to install in your garden, but pairing them specially is what makes a Zen garden so different from other styles.