MAKING JAPANESE MINIATURE GARDENS 



THE miniature garden industry in Japan has been 

 transplanted to the United States. For several 

 centuries the leading landscape gardeners of Japan 

 have made miniature models of their work so their 

 customers might see how the proposed gardens would 

 look ; very much in the same way an American archi- 



In response to this growing trade demand, one of the 

 large Japanese nurseries has opened a branch near New 

 York City, where one of their expert garden designers 

 devotes his entire time in constructing miniature gar- 

 dens for the American public. These gardens may be 

 properly divided into two classes. The first, which repre- 

 sents a Japanese garden or familiar landscape in which 

 the landscape and the house are the principal feature, and 

 the dwarf trees are only secondary ; and the other type 



Publishers' Photo Servict. IE 



AX EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF A MINIATURE GARDEN 



This little garden is built to represent one of the quaint little villages 

 of Japan. 



tect will make a prospective drawing of a house, except 

 in this case the garden is made perfect in every detail, 

 except that it is in miniature. 



The care and degree of exactness put into these gar- 

 dens is remarkable. Great care is used to select exactly 

 the right kind of stones, sand and pebbles to use in each 

 part of the design. Trees are even dwarfed and stunted 

 through many years of careful watching in order that 

 they may add to the completeness of the picture. 



These miniature gardens are called in Japanese, "Hako 

 Niwa," meaning dish gardens, because they are usually 

 built in large earthenware bowls. Every Japanese gar- 

 den contains a stream or lake with one or more bridges 

 spanning from shore to shore. If a natural body of 

 water does not exist, the landscape gardener simply 

 goes ahead and makes it. 



For a number of years an annual contest or exhibit 

 of these toy gardens has been held in the city of Kioto, 

 at which the leading landscape gardeners of Japan ex- 

 hibit their work. A great demand has grown up among 

 the tourists who visit the land of the cherry blossom 

 for copies of these miniature gardens to take back with 

 them to America. 



Publishers' Photo Service. 



REPRESENTING A TWISTED CEDAR OF JAPAN 



This miniature cedar is exactly similar to those seen frequently on the 

 mountain sides of Japan. This tree is actually twenty-two years old. 



in which a very old dwarf tree is made the central 

 feature, with a few stones and moss-covered rocks at 

 its base to give an impression of its native heath. 



"There is no rhyme that is half as sweet 

 As the song of the wind in the rippling ivheat. 

 There is no meter that's half so fine 

 As the -lilt of the brook under rock and vine, 

 And the loveliest lyric I ever heard 

 Was the wild-wood strain of a forest bird." 



Cawein. 



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