Japanese Garden Tour

​​​Seattle Japanese Garden at University of Washington Arboretum

Don’t let the small tour group fool you—these RGC adventurers, K.A., I.B. and L.F. managed to escape the worries of the world and capture a little piece of nature’s serenity. They could not have asked for a better Saturday morning filled with blue skies and sun! With the help of the Japanese Garden Brochure and a garden tour book guide, they identified the highlights of the experience visiting this wonderful themed garden in our part of the world.

Historically speaking, this 3-3/4 acre “stroll” garden began construction in 1959 (thus, the mature specimens), based on designs popular in the Matojabe period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Famed landscape architect Juki Iida and assistants developed this site from 36 pages of plans. Seattle’s sister city Kobe, Japan gifted two ancient hand-hewn granite lanterns, as well as a traditional gift from Tokyo of a Japanese Tea House—constructed there, dismantled and shipped only to be the victim of a fire by vandals. This was rebuilt with resources from Kyoto foundations and the Arboretum Foundation. The huge rocks throughout came from the Cascades and were carefully placed and buried two-thirds underground in the Japanese fashion. Meticulous, as always, this Japanese garden represents not only our close ties to Japanese cities, but ties to the peace and harmony of nature’s designs. The sun chose to shine down as a sign of quiet respect for all of the symbolic garden elements to showcase their arrangements in this beautiful treasure and our tourists were there to appreciate that “fall stroll”.

A visit to City People’s Garden Store for a bit of shopping concluded a very pleasant morning with friends of like minds! No garden club funds were spent on this tour, but no guarantee that City People’s didn’t extract some personal funding from our visit. All in an RGC day’s fun!

Courtesy of M.P. Redmond Garden Club Member