MOSS GARDENS

Hi, how are you?

We are still in Japan, Kyoto the ancient capital city, but no for that is less important nowaday. Today we are going to have a look to this magnificent Moss Garden situated in Temple Saiho-ji, which is commonly referred to as "kokedera" meaning moss temple.

The moss garden is situated in the eastern temple grounds. Located in a grove , the garden is arranged as a circular promenade centered around Golden Pond, which is shaped like the chinese character for "heart" or "mind" and contains three small islands. Asahi island, Yuhi and Kiri island. The area around the pond is said to be covered with more than 120 varieties of moss, believed to have started growing after a flooding of the temple grounds in the EDO period.

The temple also contained three tea houses, the temple hall ,study and a three-storied pagoda and a Zen rock garden in the northern grounds. The gardens of Saiho-ji are collectively considered to be both a historical landmark and a special place of scenic beauty in Japan.

As a visitors, If you are planning to visit the temple, and of course this superb gardens, it won't be that easy. First of it all you have to fill in an prior application which have to arrived 20 working days within the day planned for the intended visit to the temple. And the fee 3000 yens, is the highest in Kyoto. Before being permitted access to the garden, visitor must engage in up to three hours of zazen and hand-copying or chanting of sutras. But I guess it will be worth. Not all days you can contemplate such a beatiful gardens. It seems as it someone had taken off from a fairy tale.

It is safe to assert that no other country has such a distintive form of landscape gardening as Japan.The gardens of China and Japan have remained unique; the eastern style of gardening has never spread to any other country, nor is it ever likely to; for, just as no western artist will ever paint in the same manner as an oriental artist because his whole artistic sense is different, so no western gardener could ever hope to construct a garden representing a portion of the natural scenery of Japan, which is the aim and object of every good japanese landscape garden, however small.

Japanese art of gardening was originally borrowed from the chinese, who appear to have been the first to construct miniature mountains, and to bring water from a distance to feed miniature water-falls and mountain torrents. They even went so far as, in one enclosure, to represent separate scenes for different seasons of the year, and different hours of the day, but to the japanese belongs the honour of having perfected the art of landscape gardening.

All pictures had been taken from http://www.gardenvisits.com/

For more astonishing pictures of Japan visit the blog http://www.japan-images.blogspot.com/

Thank you all. Write you soon.!!