If we hadn’t even been to a real Japanese tea garden, we could have met one or two on the movie screens. But what are these beautiful gardens really for?

The gardens that we would now classify as tea gardens began to appear in our world in the 16th century. According to the Japanese, the tea garden is a path that connects the world of everyday affairs with the interior of tea houses. The whole atmosphere of the tea gardens is meant to evoke the feeling of a mountain trail, while the tea house symbolizes a simple home.

Japanese garden

According to the Japanese people, nature is a place where spiritual enlightenment can be achieved. As the time comes, we can retreat to nature and this retreat can be interpreted as a metaphor for our spiritual development, as the ancient sages also retreated to the mountains and to nature. In fact, we don’t even have to go to Asia, as nature was also a popular place for contemplation in Western Christian culture.

Japanese tea gardens

Japanese tea gardens can usually be divided into two parts. The outer and inner parts are separated by a simple bamboo gate. The division of the garden is purely theoretical, which helps to awaken a sense of progress and development. The most characteristic features of Japanese tea gardens are the evergreens, and the main ground cover is a natural rug made of moss. Everything in the garden is used to soothe the senses, the tea gardens are not meant to have a dramatic effect in the least.

Japanese garden design

One of the most beautiful parts of designing and building Japanese gardens is that we don’t have to stick to strict rules. One of the main features of Japanese gardens is that they do not easily fit into a particular, well-defined category. Rather, they make a person feel as if fragments of gardens appear and form a large, harmonious whole.