When Buddhist monks from China arrived in Japan, they brought with them the concept of designing gardens to display elements of the Earth and the forces of nature.
Japan’s first Japanese gardens were designed in the Karensansui style, which contained large rocks and plants across the country.
The first Japanese gardens
The first Japanese gardens were usually huge, incredibly elaborate Japanese gardens with streams and lakes where Japanese people could boat under beautiful, arched bridges. These Karensansui gardens were usually built around Japanese shrines. Another popular garden style for the development of the Japanese garden was the Tsukiyama Japanese Garden, which contained hilly landscape beds, small lakes, large rocks, streams or dry stream beds, bridges, and winding paths.
Styles of Japanese gardens
This aforementioned Japanese garden styles are still very popular today. The Tsukiyama garden style paved the way for the Chaniwa Gardens, also known as the Japanese Tea Garden. Visitors enter both gardens through intricately designed gates. The outer gardens contained plants, large stones, and paths. In the inner garden, a pebble or sandy zen garden or a Japanese tea garden awaited the curious.
Walking in the Japanese garden
It has been a tradition for visitors to wash their hands in this watershed before entering the inner tea garden. Japanese tea gardens are still very popular these days. The next trend in Japanese gardens was the pedestrian garden. The pedestrian gardens were built around a lake. The trail had a clear view of the lake on one side and a dense landscape on the other.