Trees pervade Japan's physical landscape and are vital to the country's history and culture. Over thousands of years, the sculpting of Japanese garden trees, or niwaki, has become a finely honed art with a distinctive set of pruning techniques meant to coax out the trees' essential characteristics. The methods yield dramatic and beguiling effects; mounds of pruned shrubs resemble interlocking hills, flowering apricot trees are trained out over archways, and elgonated branches of Pinus parviflora cast otherworldly silhouettes.

Jake Hobson, who learned the techniques in an Osaka nursery, encourages Western gardene... read more>>>

In this book, renowned garden designer Motomi Oguchi offers the reader a step-by-step, practical approach to creating Japanese gardens, drawn from a wealth of experience that covers thirty years and encompasses the design of more than 400 gardens. The author uses real examples from gardens he has designed, constructed, and photographed to illustrate his key points, approaching each work from the perspective of the home or building owner.
Oguchi begins with front gardens, as these are usually what one encounters first when entering a home. Typically, these front plantings are not defined Japanese garden types but rather, physical areas. He then m... read more>>>