Japanese gardens are based on symbolism and centuries-old traditions of Oriental culture. Fundamentally contradicting European rationalism, Japanese style puts into the center an emotional bunch, allowing people to contemplate the combined works of human and nature in different perspective, namely like aesthetically grounded and "deep" inhabitant. The meaning of "Zen" - the main religion of Japan - in understanding of the Void. That is why Japanese gardens are so famous due to large scale, unloaded by unnecessary, redundant objects. Here you can see the minimum of components, each of which is the center of the whole composition, and "to build" an external display of your inner world is your task. Five elements, five interrelated components form Japanese garden: stones, water, plants (planting trees), architectural elements and the latest and most abstract - an element of spirituality.
Let’s start with "stone" specialties of your garden. All is not so simply as it may seem. Stones appear before us in all their diversity: the statue, low vertical, flat, curved or lying rocks. Groups of stones are arranged from left to right, in such order like we usually look at the picture. In the same manner movement in the garden is organized. Either way, it is necessary to refer the whole science of placement of stones - Sute-ICI. Arrangement mostly consists of an odd number of stones: three, five, seven (mostly: andesite, granite, basalt and chlorite). They are mounted on the surface or partially buried in the earth, sometimes obliquely, at an angle to the surface of the earth. Another important condition: the choice of the central representative stone (syuseka), and the first subdued stone fukuseki and second subordinate kiakuseki stone. it turns entire structure into a kind of triangle - "Triad" in accordance with the Buddhist religion. Simple structural elements are implemented in plastic expressiveness.
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Water. Vivid energy. Yin is an opposition to stone "plantations" Yang. Indispensable attribute of garden art in Japan. There are many variations of water spaces: from a thin, meandering brook to a mini-waterfall, which Japanese often place a little bit far from home. Shaded ponds and lakes are combined with other elements of the garden in a special way: water surface is to reflect surrounding landscape in all its elegantly arched, sloping lines, without losing any of the tree midday shadows, thereby increasing the amount of visual territory allocated under the garden. The banks of water are opposed to each other in the same manner as their framing: on the one hand - mossy, "rolling" boulders, on the other - grasses. For maximum similarity to real Japanese landscape, we can help you make such kind of a mini-island in the middle of the lake. Covered with vegetation, these islands of land in the set, can be connected into a variety of bridges, both among themselves and directly with the mainland. In addition, in the water zigzag wooden decks or roads from stones are often placed at an angle to each other. However, if you have no place, or possibility, or elementary - desire, bodies of water may be replaced by their simulations, then your garden will become a so-called flat garden (dry landscape). Water will be replaced by the ground, covered with sand with plotted wavy lines on it. Figure is applied to the sand or fine gravel with a wooden board with broad teeth. In the middle of "water" creators of design art continue to imitate the presence of islands: the rock (ISO-dzima), forest (Mori-dzima), mountain (s-dzima), with young pines on the sand (suhama-gata-ji-TMA), in the form of Clouds (Kumo-gata-dzima), etc.
Flora. Japanese garden can be attributed more to monochrome than to polychromic type. Green color is dominant, preference is given to evergreen species: pine, bamboo, grasses. From the hardwood: camellia, azalea, magnolia. Flowering perennials and annuals are almost absent here, if they exist, they are observable like a few bright spots (the bushes of peonies, irises thickets, plant lotus). In general the whole system in the Japanese compositions is tuned to different seasons’ sound. In the gardens darker plants are placed in the background, and bright one is on the front, so feeling of depth perception appears. Decrepitude is bordered with youth: the stumps and skeletons of dry trees, along with flowering and fruit-bearing specimens are designed to show all naturalness and sublimity of the cycle of life.
Architecture. Characteristic elements of Architecture are the stone lanterns and pagodas. They can be divided to the pedestal (height of 1,5-3 meters, designed for large gardens), hidden (often located near tsukubai - stone bowl with water in a barrel height of 20-30 cm), their light is directed into the ground and yakimi ( yukimi)-gata (and seemingly covered with snow) which are set near water. It is lights with a square or round roof, with the base from the stone or concrete stand. To soften the light frosted glass is used.
Thus, creating the model of the world in limited space, specialists on the Japanese landscape recommend us to keep the principle of asymmetry. Say "no" to elements of proportionality and clarity, parallel to their location! A little emphasis on texture, sounds, and fragrance and you are ready to adopt a rhythm defined by nature, allowing it to penetrate into the very depths of your mind, submerging physical and mental bodies in the measurement of complete and limitless calm, collected by souls for thousands of years of existence of the world… a weightless state of nirvana …

