JAPAN [four]: TEMPLE GARDENS...

In this reality the sacred is close... inviting, yet.. elusive. One feels invitation... permission to taste & sample. Heaven seems to exist first in life on this earth... reality as abstract gardens.

While I can claim no real knowledge about theology or religion in Japan, architecturally at least, they present themselves quite often at street level. Never so grandiose as European cathedrals, they seem to support everyday life in their presence... or to offer a deep sense of remove behind gated walls.

I often felt a bit intrusive as we explored... Yet each accommodates stocking-footed visitors along the verandas circumambulating the temples while coming to awareness that these garden are many centuries alive... even those made only of sere stone. A difficult concept even to this organic gardener remembering the natural temples in the Red Rocks of Sedona.

Thus the gardens, which have long been part of the meditational practice of the temple devotees, proving a literally living faith. While there is resonance between them, there does not seem to be any formula. Each presents an individual history of story & style.

This is the most famous of the raked gravel type:

We were nearly always accompanied by groups of youngsters on school outings...

I was enthralled by the wooden walkways, protected by the eaves, with deliciously comfortable flooring made with extravagantly wide polished boards. They buffered the building from the garden, while offering possibility of opening the shoji to marry interior with the exterior spaces.

Another was a study in moss...

Details I liked included interactive margins & the surprize of these red buckets, both just over the edges of the walkways. I must presume the buckets are part of fire protection...

Compositions could be severely geometric or quite amorphic. All were poetic dialogues & dramatic conversations between rocks & plants inside constucted controlled space surrounding a wooden space built as "nature" by & for humans... becoming rather an elaborately organic theatre.

I caught Stephen in a sweet reverie at sunset in this rich Zen environment...

The meditation rooms of the zendos were serene, with lively painting on the shoji.

Skillful craftsmanship in wood abounds in Japan, of course.

There is a pair of famous temples on the eastern & western sides of Kyoto, close to the bordering mountains...  one Silver & the other Golden... both having large gardens... in opposing styles. The Silver Temple never got its metallic treatment... the dark two-story building just to the right of sand cone is the temple. It's gardens are the attraction, beginning with this sand garden featuring a blunt conical shape representing Mount Fuji... seemingly as symbolic volcano.

This was the largest... & tallest! of this kind of sculptural construct in nature we saw.

The shogun who built this garden lived his retirement in the larger villa near the temple.

The severity of the geometric sand evolves as the path turns into more verdant planting while the mountain receeds into the distance.





A waterfall is another typical feature of Kyoto's gardens... as are the props used to shape the trees... I may need to make a separate post of the many images I made of such devices & other tools which caught this gardener's eyes...







 The path climbs quite high up the steep hillside to a viewpoint of the temple complex before relaxing down through green glades.

One last glyphic sand garden...

Plus a glimpse I made into a gardener's toy box...

For the record, I must explain that both Stephen & I were making photographs with our cameras & phones. We do not always know which of us took these images, so I give equal credit to him...

ENDING A SEASON... ENDING AN ERA...

I broke my favorite gardening tool several days ago... ending a twenty year era using it to fork-up garden soil. I bought it just after my 50th birthday with a gift of cash from Frederick & Rodney in Sonoma County, California, carving an inscription to that effect along the handle. It had been fragile & we had replaced it with another so as to coddle its weakness, but, in a mood of reminiscence. I took it out of its corner in the shed for a gentle chore. 

Its time had obviously come... 

I might have used it to dig the tubers of the Mashua, which has covered its trellis this summer & is now blooming... the first indication that the harvest at its roots is beginning to develop... probably to be ready around solstice...

The entire plant is edible, leading leaflets are great in salad, as are the insignificant blossoms, 

This is a Peruvian nasturtium I discovered when I was volunteering at the "Mother Garden", the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, also in Sonoma. Most years I've had difficulty growing enough "seed" tubers to plant, but last year I didn't let us eat any of the zippy morsels  & we are now going to be rewarded! We happily eat them sliced raw, but they are also delicious roasted, when they mellow n flavor. I've posted about this before with these photos of a previous crop...

 I'll close with these delightfully colored Fava beans from earlier this summer...

Apprentice Chandler took the time to sort them into a gradually spectral line...

Now I will shop for a new handle for the still sturdy tines of the fork... 

perhaps it will yet help to harvest Mashua!

Frogs & Fog...

Recent mornings have been rather mystically misty.

Bringing my morning coffee down to sit in the garden startles the frogs into silence for only a few minutes while they assess that I am no danger. I could not say "chorus", which certainly applies to the sound we often open car windows, slowing on our drive home, to enjoy passing several ponds higher on the slopes above Soundcliff.

As I settle the quiet restores & they begin again... usually only a trio or quartet of young explorers, presumably from those wet places further up-slope. I sip, celebrating that they chose to grace this garden at the edge of... well... everything! To have frogs, butterflies & bees, plus increasing variety of birdsong in our Eden gives some hope on our cliff's edge... emissaries of the Goddess.

How does one measure a garden's progress?  Years ago I grounded myself as quincunx to the center of the four raised beds I call "Roothole". I've held faith in the intelligence of growing beauty & food, rejuvenating my patchy gardener, after some years living urban... proving my devotion.

These musings sometime get warmed by bright moments aptly described  in our vernacular as the sun-breaks we cherish. The camomile bed begins to call me. I've ignored it this summer to the point I was ready to give up weeding it. Weeding again becomes meditation...

Summer has been gloriously sunny... the garden has similarly responded!

There is a lovely wild plant abundant in our neighborhood. I do not know any name, but we have dubbed it a "gourd". It is not. Instead it is a fragile husk which protects three large seeds, which develop into a sturdy perennial octopus-like root mass. While not on my list of weeds, I am chary to let its lovely rampant growth into my garden!

 The pea trellis eventually gave a long season of both snow peas & sugar snap varieties.

 It grew in the old fire-pit, which has developed rich soil...

I found seeds for a variety of beans I knew from the Mother Garden in Sonoma County... which we came to call "Dragon's Lingerie" mimicking the French name.

 We grow many kales & greens, but our favorite kale has long been Lacinata, rich substance, dark green. Late summer brought another old favorite in Trombonchino, a squash often living up to its name in shape!

Our favorite of the several varieties of kale we grow is Lacinatta, a deeply vital, dark green, rich in texture & nutrition... glorious fiber!

Squash blossoms are further boom, offering cavities to stuff with goodie before sauteing.

 

One result...

 

We love having fine displays from new bulbs... Hymenocalis, so reminiscent of blooms in Bali, we can only welcoming this exotic flower to Soundcliff's garden!

Another "exotique" was dug out between paving stones as I weeded...

This ginger was gift from Taylor some years ago. finally finding a home to bloom...

The challenge is to determine our zone as it might define our unique exposure for such specimens... I've a life's-work yet in this garden. 

I end with a nocturnal view of Soundcliff wishing you good night.