Morikami Japanese Gardens

Living Textbook of Japanese Garden History and Design

Nov 4, 2008 Georgene A. Bramlage

The Morikami Gardens in Del Ray Beach, FL are a living textbook They demonstrate periods of Japanese garden history and design from the 8th to the 20th century.

Landscape garden designers wanting to make a Japanese-style garden might ask "Why study the history of Japanese garden design?" as well as "Why study examples found in my part of the world.?"

Study of Japanese garden history helps a landscape gardener make distinctions and ultimately a personal interpretation among the several Japanese-style gardens. These inquiries also help identify the fine local distinctions and plant selections that make gardens regionally deep-rooted.

A Good Place to Begin

The Morikami Gardens, Roji-en - Garden of the Drops of Dew, dedicated to George D. and Harriet W. Cornell, are living outdoor exhibits, a component of the Morikami Museum. The gardens demonstrate six periods of Japanese garden history that reflect the island nation's civic history.

Morikami is the only setting, worldwide, to exhibit a historical view of authentic Japanese-style gardens. The Journal of Japanese Gardening ranks these gardens eighth in quality among more than 300 Japanese Gardens outside Japan. Designer, Hoichi Kurisu, says, "Each garden is intended to express the character and ideas of a unique counterpart in Japan without attempting to duplicate those gardens, and seamlessly flow together as one garden." The gardens encompass sixteen acres.

Gardens at Morikami

Shinden Gardens (Shinden Teien) Heian Period, c. 9th -12th centuries, represent a symbolic transition where worldly concerns are left behind and visitors begin to sense nature's spirituality interpreted within the Japanese garden.

No shinden-style gardens exist intact today. Garden historians know of them only from a few remaining Japanese ponds, hand scrolls painted near the end of the period, and 11th century descriptions of garden designs.

The entire Morikami garden landscape surrounds a lake. Two islands at the northern edge of this lake contain shinden-style gardens. Japanese aristocrats adapted this formal, symmetrical style from the Chinese. An arched bridge, painted vermillion like those found from the Tang Dynasty China (618 – c. 907), leads to the first island and a zig-zag bridge to the second one.

The stroll (shuyu) garden is an outcome of the shinden-style. Plantings in this garden as well as the following paradise garden grow naturally with very little pruning.

Paradise Gardens (JodoTeien) Kamakura and early Muromachi Periods, c. 13th and 14th centuries, represent the Pure Land or Buddhist Heaven. These gardens graced Buddhist temples rather than aristocratic residences.

Guiding principles for paradise gardens were to provide comfort and hope for temple visitors as well as the developing samurai class. Paths provided incentive for strolling to look at garden scenery and drink tea, a newly imported custom, at a specially constructed pavilion.

Early Rock Gardens (ZenkiSekitei) early Muromachi Period, c. 14th century, followed the belief in Zen. The samurai, the class which dominated society culturally and politically by the end of the 12th century, drew on Zen’s philosophy of self-reliance, sacrifice and discipline as the means to salvation. This interpretation is often mirrored in early rock gardens.

At Morikami, a dry cascade close by the paradise garden represents the early rock garden style. This arrangement shows the different ways in which Buddhism influenced Japanese garden design. Zen gardens are severe and rigid, an example of asceticism; the pure land-inspired garden offers tradition, comfort and optimism.

Late Rock Garden (Sekitei) Muromachi Period, c. 15th century, demonstrates flat areas of raked gravel, with some well-chosen and carefully placed rocks. Plants take on a secondary role in the design. These Zen gardens are probably the most widely recognized Japanese-type gardens.

These dry landscapes (karesansui) take ideas of nature to extremes never seen in other garden designs. These gardens challenge Western ideas of garden design. Viewing locations within adjacent temple buildings allowed appreciation of the dry landscape gardens. The gardens were an aid to meditation and not entered. The stark rock arrangements clear the mind and help attain enlightenment.

The Morikami dry landscape garden uses a traditional karesansuii approach with a minimum of form and material. It follows designs like those perfected in Zen Buddhist temples which trim nature to its most elemental aspects.

Flat Gardens (HiraNiwa) Edo Period, c. 17th and 18th centuries, were usually residential gardens. These gardens merged late rock garden features with those adapted from tea gardens. Flat gardens did not possess spiritual relationship but were pleasant and decorative. By the late 16th century, designs used accents and focal points such as pagodas (tahoto), water basins, wells, lanterns, and stepping-stones.

The focus, shakkei or ‘borrowed scenery,' of the Morikami flat garden is the tile-roofed museum building seen between small hills and shrubbery. These are the actual physical limits of the garden site, pulled in to become the backdrop of the landscaped area. Other flat gardens also use views beyond their enclosures such as a distant mountain peak.

Modern Romantic Gardens (KindaiTeien), late 19th and early 20th centuries, show how western influences on society opened new opportunities for Japanese garden design. Lawns, formal planting arrangements, paved walkways, and fountains made their way into Japanese gardens of the period. Japanese garden designers also discovered forms and materials already present in their culture.

It is almost as if by the early 20th century Japanese garden design had traveled full circle back to the love of nature appreciated in the shinden-style garden. Modern garden designs explore naturalism and welcome assorted plant choices. The Morikami garden notes say that these gardens are "Lighter, more open in feeling, the while recalling nostalgically the love of nature expressed in the literature of the Heian Period."

The copyright of the article Morikami Japanese Gardens in Landscaping is owned by Georgene A. Bramlage. Permission to republish Morikami Japanese Gardens in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.