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Japanese garden-1  

In order to create our Japanese garden we attempted to follow the principles of making a garden as laid down by the Japanese many centuries ago.                              

The roji originally is the garden through which you reach the tea-house. Literally roji means: dewy path, especially a wood-land path. It is a garden meant to function as a transition zone between busy everyday life and the performance of the tea ceremony. Here we use the roji to announce and to facilitate the transition from a highly-coloured and exuberant world to a place of tranquillity and stillness. Although it is not much more than a shady path, there is an oribe stone-lantern, and a water-basin (tsukubai) to symbolize purification. There is also a roofed waiting bench to sit upon for a while if you prefer to wait until other visitors have left the Japanese garden.                                                                            

The ground-plan of the garden in which you arrive when coming out of the roji, is similar to that of the gardens of the Heian period (794 - 1185). In those days most gardens were owned by emperors and the nobility and these gardens often had large lakes on which people liked to go boating. The water entered the lake in the east or the north-east and left it in the west or the south-west. 

In our garden the water enters the lake in the east, where the three "mountains" are located. Five huge rocks in traditional shapes, surrounded by helping-stones, form the waterfall here. The water leaves the lake in the south-west as a stream that flows capriciously changing direction to the east and then disappears somewhere under the bushes as if it meanders indefinitely. The flow of the stream is like the form of a serpent. According to tradition the form was left by a dragon swishing its tail and this formed the bed of the stream. 
                    

As our Japanese garden measures only 1800 m² , boating is out of the question! It has become a garden to stroll in. There are stepping-stones everywhere around the lake and many of the corners and the more remote places can also be visited on little pathways. The stepping-stones (tobi-ishi) have been laid carefully in a pleasing pattern. They have to stand well clear of the soil, to prevent the walker’s feet getting wet. Consequently the stones have to be very thick, for stability requires that a significant part of them is embedded into the ground. We did not manage to find such heavy stones for every place but we take comfort in the thought that not even in Japan can these high requirements be met in every garden!

Although the stones are not always that easy to walk on for hurrying Western feet, we still ask you to keep to them at all times. Even on both the pebble beaches it is only the stepping- stones that have been designed to be walked upon!  

The small signboard at the entrance of the pond garden shows in Japanese characters: Un-kyō-en, which means Garden of the Clouds-mirror. The first things you can see through the small trees and shrubs are the lake, the waterfall and the tea-house. Then we suggest you turn left, cross the stone-bridge and you will arrive on the nantei, where we have built our tea-house.  

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