To master any skill or art form, one must first study the masters who came before. The same is true for Japanese garden design, which has been practiced for centuries — one learns best by visiting, experiencing, and studying gardens. Even if you have no desire to garden, understanding the techniques and principles behind the design choices made in Japanese gardens will help deepen the appreciation of your surroundings. 

The Sakuteiki, the earliest written treatise on the subject, was written sometime during the eleventh century, and the principles outlined within remain as relevant today as they were then. Two ideas underscore the principles I describe below. Firstly, interpretation is everything. It is crucial not to copy slavishly from previous examples, but to study nature and interpret it in your own creation. Secondly, the success of one’s Japanese garden is not simply down to its initial design, but nurtured over time through maintenance and care. After all, the point of a garden is in caring and maintaining it, and allowing it to reward you through the seasons. 

Use symbols

Nothing in a Japanese garden is there by chance. Every element has an intended purpose and meaning. Rock arrangements are more than merely aesthetically pleasing. They may represent Mount Hōrai, home of the legendary Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology, or tortoise and crane islands symbolising long life. Raked gravel stands in for flowing water. Three rocks can illustrate the idea of heaven and earth, with humans in between. Pine trees represent wisdom, longevity, and perseverance. Plums and cherry blossoms represent the fleeting nature of life. And so on. 

Space allows a garden to breathe 

Artists understand that what you omit from a composition is as important as what you include. The same principle applies to gardens. How much or how little space between the various elements — plants, water, rocks, etc — determines how the visitor experiences the garden. Should there be too little space, the garden may feel cramped and cluttered; too much space between the elements might result in a garden that appears poor, even desolate. On a related note, more is never more when it comes to Japanese gardens. Less is usually more; if something can be removed without affecting the garden’s design, let it go. 

Create the illusion of distance, perspective, and spaciousness  

Not everyone has the luxury of space, and creating a beautiful garden is often about making best use of what is available. The designer can avail themselves of any number of techniques to make a small garden appear spacious. For instance, forced perspective, using larger rocks in the foreground of a viewpoint, and smaller ones further back; a pond or stream may be wider near the viewpoint and taper away into the distance. All this helps to add depth to the background. It is important, then, not to clutter the middle ground with too much detail, so that elements in the foreground can shine. 

A particularly effective technique often deployed in smaller Japanese gardens is shakkei, or borrowed scenery; it is speculated that the concept is probably Chinese in origin. The idea is to incorporate the surrounding landscape into the garden itself, whether hills, mountains, trees, or other man-made structures like temples. This makes a garden appear larger than it actually is. Sengan-en in Kagoshima, pictured above, makes brilliant use of this technique by incorporating the Sakurajima volcano into its design. Ginkaku-ji and Tenryu-ji in Kyoto also do the same with their respective surrounding mountains. 

Strike a balance

The ideal Japanese garden achieves a sense of balance, largely through asymmetry and off-centeredness. No single element should dominate in an overwhelming manner, and the eye should be encouraged to keep meandering around the scene. Forms should be arranged in a pleasing manner, and never at the exact centre of a design — asymmetrical design and off-centeredness keeps a composition interesting and dynamic, lines that move and flow help to lead the eye across a vista, while triangular shapes introduce some visual stability. 

A rock garden such as the one at Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto is a good example. None of the rocks of various sizes are laid in straight axes; the spaces between them vary just enough to keep things visually interesting. The white gravel around each cluster of rocks is raked in concentric circles, evoking ripples. A sea of white gravel creates a horizontal plane that affords viewers a calm, contemplative environment, but there are just enough rocks arranged in the space to break up the nothingness. Surrounding walls and trees of different heights in the background frame this composition, bringing a sense of unity to the whole. 

Another way of introducing visual interest is by incorporating elevation changes through artificial hills (or making use of what’s already there). Placing elements at various heights also creates this effect. Undulating hills add sloping, dynamic lines to a landscape, and also allows the viewer to look at the garden from many perspectives. 

Pay attention to sound 

A successful Japanese garden is not only beautiful from a visual standpoint, but also considers sound to be crucial to the experience. Think of a murmuring stream, the susurrus of grasses, a breeze rustling the branches of a pine tree. Water trickling through stone water basins adds a melodious touch to a garden. The click of bamboo striking stone as a shishi-odoshi is emptied of water jolts us out of reverie. A Japanese garden encourages us to pay attention with all our senses. 

Create changes and contrasts 

Contrast is a potent tool for the creator, breathing life and dynamism into a composition. In the garden, this might come in the form of contrasting colours (stark white sand, grey rock, and green moss), textures (velvety moss, rough lichen on bark, smooth stones), shapes and sizes (a small pine tree trimmed into cloud shapes, a large vertical rock to represent a crane, a long, flat rock to represent a turtle), and even species of plants. 

Contrast naturally arises through creating change. This appears in two forms: the change in scenery as a viewer moves through the garden, and the change caused by the passage of time. This is particularly important in a large strolling garden; the visitor should not be able to behold the entire garden at once, but experience it through a series of shifting viewpoints, each unearthing beautiful surprises. The seasons, too, express the possibilities of a Japanese garden. Each month brings different plants and new landscape possibilities; it is a pleasure to see how a Japanese garden appears in each season with the blooming of flowers and the shifting colours of leaf foliage. 

Written by Florentyna Leow