Japanese Gardens combine stone, water and plants to make a beautiful and peaceful setting. These can be done in all parts of the country and are easy to create. There are certain elements that a typical Japanese Garden has which are rocks, water, lantern or similar lighting, and stepping stones or better yet a bridge. Because the ideal is natural, you want to recreate only natural looking elements in your designs. Some Gardens have an island in the middle of the pond depending on the size of your pond you probably won’t be building an island. Because these gardens are more natural then manmade they usually don’t have fountains. Balance is the key element in these gardens. Rustic looks best for a Japanese Garden landscape design.
Usually the planning stage you will start with the pond, then the stones and lastly plants. Once you design the layout of the pond, you will want to put the stones around the pond and to the pond then you will plant the plants around the outside of the pond and throughout the path to the pond. This way the pond looks more natural.
To design a Japanese Garden in your yard you will want a pond that looks natural. You can build a pond that has a little waterfall so that when you are sitting near the pond you will hear the water flowing for a relaxing setting. Rocks should be used around the pond to give it a natural look and feel. Large flat rocks look best these are semi-embedded in the ground so that it is only about 2 to 3 inches above the ground.
Stones that you want to use are flat stones then you will also want to use some tall stones to stand vertically, along the path to your garden. River rocks are ideal to use in the garden these are worn to the point that they are perfect almost flat on the top from decades of water flowing over them. These will be in the pond as well as for the path and decorative rocks around the setting.
Plants that are the last part of the landscape design are mostly native plants to your area. You will want to use perennials and shrubs. Some trees that you can use are bamboo, cherry trees, and maple trees. But you can use any plant or tree that you like best.
If you do use lighting one of the prettiest lighting I seen in a Japanese garden was a stone lantern, this was conventional lighting inside homemade built stones. With the flat stones on top and bottom there were 4 vertical rocks holding the top rocks giving the light plenty of openings to shine out from the lantern.
Japanese Gardens are easy to build and will work with most landscape ideals. They are peaceful and a great place to relax and entertain.
