URBANA, Ill. — I knew professor Kimiko Gunji, the first director of the new Japan House, needed a tea garden because she would be teaching the tea ceremony and the garden is a necessary part. I had already constructed and maintained my own Japanese gardens at my home for many years, and I have traveled many times to Japan studying their gardens as a hobby. With this experience, I felt confident in designing an accurate garden for Japan House.
It took two years to build the Tea Garden, followed by another two years to construct the Dry Garden. I felt it was necessary that I take care of the gardens while they were growing to control the particular Japanese requirements in maintenance, such as pruning, keeping the gardens as authentic as possible.
The hill along the east side of Lincoln Avenue and at the Tea Garden fits well philosophically into the concept of a tea garden, where one leaves a structured environment and hikes along a path into a mountain wilderness setting to have tea with a friend in a rustic hut.
The path from the main gate leads to a waiting bench, where guests are seated until they are invited in by the host or hostess. From there, they enter the inner garden past a small bamboo gate.
A tea garden is built in two sections: an outer garden and inner garden, contrasts of each other. The outer garden is semiformal in pruning and the walks, as well as being predominantly evergreen. The inner garden is more rustic, deciduous and with natural pruning to give the feeling of being in a forest. The path is made of stepping stones, something that might be made from nearby material in such a setting.
Guests enter the inner garden and approach a water basin, where each guest takes a sip of water and lightly rinses their fingers as a symbolic cleansing of the mind and body. Then the guests proceed to the tea house or tea room. The water basin is absolutely necessary; otherwise it is not a tea garden. Water needs to be represented in some form in every Japanese garden.
In the Dry Garden, the gravel suggests water – a pond, a lake, an ocean, whatever is imagined. Here the shape of the gravel outline is inspired by the shape of the real pond nearby with its flowing lines. The gravel is never to be walked on or disturbed.
Asymmetry is dominant in Japanese gardens, and much of the layout here at Japan House is asymmetrical. Vegetation and its growth is always asymmetrical, which helps to give Japanese gardens their appearance of closeness to nature.
Behind the gravel outline is a line of evergreen Japanese yews pruned to suggest a mountainous area wrapping around the body of water. Behind this are bayberry shrubs loosely pruned to suggest clouds.
Rocks are the skeleton of any Japanese garden, and large ones give vitality to the design. The 2,000-pound rock in the Dry Garden is from California, brought here by professor Shozo Sato, the founder of the original Japan House. In its location in the Dry Garden, it can suggest a part of a hillside or mountain range. The way it is shaped, it could be an outcrop or, in your imagination, even a waterfall. The bluish-gray granite rock is a classic color used in Japan, although it is a lighter shade than seen in their gardens.
A stroll garden would encompass the perimeter of the pond near Japan House. I have a plan for this garden, and I hope someday to see a new garden constructed, which would join the Anderson Japanese Garden in Rockford and the Japanese gardens at the Chicago and Missouri botanical gardens as stroll gardens to visit in the Illinois area. At the moment, the pond is fed mainly by rainwater and needs to be at a constant level at all times to landscape. This problem is being discussed. When a predictable level is achieved, a serious approach to building the garden could begin, with necessary funds.
Editor’s note: Japan House has developed a mobile guide to its gardens that visitors can listen to on their phones for a self-guided tour. The mobile guide, narrated by Bier, can be found on the Japan House website at http://japanhouse.art.illinois.edu/en/gardenguide/.
