Inside Your Japanese Garden: A Guide to Creating a Unique Japanese Garden for Your Home

by Joseph Cali, Sadao Yasumoro

Learn how to create a tranquil outdoor space at home with this practical and inspiring guide!

With instructive drawings and step-by-step techniques, Inside Your Japanese Garden walks you through designing and creating your very own Japanese garden. From small projects like benches and gates, to larger undertakings like bridges and mud walls, this book provides a wide variety of ways to enhance the space around your home, no matter the size. Instructions on how to work with stone, mud and bamboo--as well as a catalogue of the 94 plant varieties used in the gardens shown in the book--round out this complete guide.

This book also features 19 gardens that author Sadao Yasumoro has designed and built in Japan, and some--like those at Visvim shop in Tokyo and at Yushima Tenjin in Tokyo--are open to the public. From small tsuboniwa courtyard gardens to a large backyard stroll garden with water features, stairs and walls, these real-life inspirations will help spark your own garden plan.

These inspirational garden projects

Tea Garden for an Urban Farmhouse featuring a clay wall with a split-bamboo framework and a stone base

The Landslide That Became a Garden with a terraced slope, trees, bushes, long grasses and moss

A Buddha's Mountain Retreat of Moss and Stone with a vertical-split bamboo fence and a brushwood fence

Paradise in an Urban Jungle with a pond, bridge, and lanterns

Each garden is beautifully photographed by Hironori Tomino and many have diagrams and drawings to show the essential elements used in the planning and construction.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Japan

172 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 8, 2022

Reviews

[Tissie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book caught in the bottleneck—there are 5-6 of them, I think—and I’m sorry because Inside Your Japanese Garden deserves the highest praises. No one rated it on GoodReads yet, I mean, which. A crime, let me tell you.

[Keep reading @ Bookshelves & Teacups]

[Alexandria Blaelock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of beautiful pictures, some planting plans, and instructions for constructing some of the typical elements of Japanese gardens such as bridges, stepping stones, and water features. Read the book for inspiration, not detailed how tos.

[Du · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like that this is a manual for designing and enjoying a Japanese garden. The relaxation of looking at ideas and creating the Atmosphere of relaxation is enough to enjoy this book.

[Mary Lynn]

A must for anyone who enjoys Japanese gardening!

[KJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watch the garden grow… or roll!

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Describes how to make covered waiting benches and earthen bridges

[Latifah S Ningrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

The garden references in this book are very beautiful and calming. Some of the designs inspire me when I want to have a house tomorrow. I am amazed by the way the stones and bamboo are arranged.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the range of topics the author covered. He gave theory behind the development of the Japanese style of garden, images, step-by-step instructions for some of the hardscape, history behind aspects of the style, and botanical planting information. And, he did it in small chapters, easy-to-read bites. For me, a person who loves to garden "consciously", it was a wonderful primer with ideas that I can bring into my very "Western" home garden.