28o How to Make a Flower Garden 



the shrubbery to offer inviting gHmpses beyond, where some one thing is 

 given prominence, although it may be only a fine boulder or an artistic roof 

 over a drinking basin. The boulders, in the beauty of this natural roughness, 

 are emphasised after they have been located by the Japanese gardener. 

 No art of the stonecutter could make them more attractive, while the use to 

 which some are put compels approval from its very genuineness. 



Stone lanterns, porcelain bowls and wooden structures vary the scheme 

 of decoration with their shapes outlined upon the somber foliage. The 

 ishi doro — the stone lantern, the torii — the archway with double timbers 

 across the top, said to be an invitation to the birds, are, like other 

 structures in the garden, full of meaning to the Japanese, but these decorative 

 accessories do not convey to the foreign mind so much that they could not 

 be dispensed with and the simple garden adopted at its real value as a 

 natural scheme. 



The Japanese create even smaller models of landscapes — gardens so 

 tiny that they may occupy no more space than the top of a good-sized table. 

 In these the merest pebbles do duty as rocks, a capful of stones will construct 

 a cliff, and a bunch of small plants serve for a forest, while the paths and 

 streams may be spanned by a finger's breadth. 



Landscape gardening is said to have been introduced into Japan from 

 China, where Buddhist priests had created miniature landscapes in the 

 temple gardens. It was to this end that the dwarfing of trees and shrubs 

 became a necessity. The artistic purpose was to copy the attractions of 

 a true landscape and to give the impression that a real one conveys. It 

 stands for a picture, not merely to look upon, but one to stroll about in and 

 to be enjoyed from within the picture itself. The Japanese garden is as 

 much an art creation as is a painting. 



There are several styles of gardens in Japan, having in common many 

 names and much folklore, but they are also individualised as the gardener 

 — a poet or priest, as he may be — endeavours to express some mood of nature. 

 There are "hill gardens," or "flat gardens," in their various "rough" or 

 "finished" fashions, and there are trees for a framework of foliage, or stones 

 for the laying-out of a ground-plan. Perhaps by the readmg of this sketch 

 of a transplanted Japanese garden in America some one having a patch 

 of rugged ground covered with trees and bushes may be tempted to convert 

 it into a garden somewliat of the Japanese pattern. 



