How to Create a Classic Low Maintenance Japanese Garden

True Japanese gardens require very little maintenance as the components are mainly easy-care features such as gravel, pebbles, stones, wood, water and occasional, carefully-chosen and well-positioned shrubs or small trees.

Designing The Garden

A sense of tranquillity and areas for contemplation are important elements in a Japanese garden. The design must be kept simple and uncluttered, concentrating on outline, shape and contrasting surface textures, while the use of plants is restrained, resulting in a garden that satisfies the senses but requires minimum aftercare.

Focal Points

Rocks and stones have a special importance in many Japanese gardens. They can be set in an area covered with fine pebbles, which are an ideal labour-saving ground cover. When wet, they change colour and catch the light.

Choose some special stones of varying size, colour and character, and arrange asymmetrically in one or two areas in uneven numbers. Traditionally, the pebbles are raked into variations of parallel lines and snaking spirals centralised on the main rock features. Gravel can be substituted for pebbles as a cheaper option. You can inset a walkway of large paving slabs or sawn tree-trunk pieces in the gravel.

Minimal Planting

In an authentic Japanese stone garden, the only plants might be mounds of green moss providing a softening contrast with the stones and rocks, but other types of Japanese-inspired garden include a few more plants, chosen for their interesting form or grace. These can be planted through the pebbles or in large simple containers. If mosses, which thrive in moist conditions out of direct sun, cannot be encouraged to grow, try moss like plants as an alternative, such as Sagina Subulata, S. Procumbens, or, in mild areas, the ground-hugging carpeter Soleirolia Soleirii.

A Water Feature