The Japanese Garden Jo-Ryo-En

Jo-Ryo-En, The Garden of Quiet Listening, is a small kare-sansui (dry landscape) garden located on the campus of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Designed and built between 1974 and 1976, the garden today is professionally maintained and continues to reflect the quality of its original design. 

Website: https://www.carleton.edu/japanese-garden/

The entrance to the garden is an open area that can be approached from a neighboring building that is part of the college campus. Stepping stones and a large kasuga lantern mark this formal entrance. 

Across from the lantern is a unique chozubachi water feature designed to give visitors an opportunity to symbolically cleanse themselves before entry into the formal garden.

The chozubachi is also located at the end of a long straight nobedan, a type of walkway made of natural stones. The path also acts as a border from which a passerby can view the kare-sansui.

Walking along the nobedan brings one past a tsukiya style viewing pavilion.  

The use of naturally curving timbers add to the authenticity of the the structure. 

Although the description above starts with the formal entrance, there are two other entrances to the garden. In fact, I first entered the garden from the back of the viewing pavilion. I preferred this experience over the formal expansive-view entrance. The off-kilter opening between the yotsume-gaki ("four-eyed fence") and the long horizontal window along the back wall of the pavilion offered only glimpses of the garden that awaited my gaze. Taking this path was like approaching a pending moment of enlightenment, an experience that is often the highlight of visiting a Japanese garden.

The third entrance was at the far end of the nobedan and could be accessed by a shaded walkway that passed alongside the rear of the garden.

The garden was well cared for as demonstrated by the presence of volunteers who had just completed a "garden day" as I arrived. I was also able to meet with the landscape gardener responsible for the maintenance of the garden. Her willingness to share information about the garden and its plantings provided some additional insights about the significance of the garden.

There was a nice balance between the plantings and the hardscape features. Precisely placed stones did not overwhelm the garden and the use of local plantings for ground cover worked well together.

The stone bridge, a replacement for an earlier wooden bridge, looked similar in structure to Japanese stone bridges I had seen elsewhere, but may have been a slab of granite used in counter-top construction. I was informed that replacing it with a more authentic stone was being considered.

A large three-trunked Scotch pine had been pruned over the years to create one of the most beautiful features of the garden. I have never seen a tree with such unusual characteristics. It was the perfect backdrop and most interesting focal point in the garden.

The lantern identified on the garden website as a yukimi (stone covered lantern) seems more typical of the wabi-sabi aesthetic where natural stones are used rather than formal carved features. However, the core seem somewhat inconsistent with the base and top.

The ground cover, large "mountain" stones, and Lake Superior beach stones create the illusion of a mountain stream that flows into a lake represented by the gravel area. This feature was well designed and was a another highlight of the garden.

The one feature that needs reconsideration is the quality of the gravel used in the kare-sansui. Acquiring rakable gravel similar to what is found in Japan is difficult. Peastone will not hold a raked pattern. Some North American gardens use chicken or turkey grit which will hold a pattern. In Jo-Ryo-En it appears that crushed gravel was used. 

The pieces were too large, could not create a pattern, and the color too dark. It made it difficult to see some of the smaller "island" stones within the gravel that might have stood out better if a brighter gravel had been employed. The metaphor of a "lake" only works if patterns can be raked into the gravel, and Jo-Ryo-En has a large "lake" in need of ripples. 

I will also note that this gravel choice contributes to the problem of visitors walking out into the gravel when visiting the garden - they see no patterns and assume its just a gravel pit, a behavior I witnessed first-hand when several groups of students entered the "lake" to take group photos. This problem could be remedied by simply installing a better rope/fence than the existing one, and include some educational signage about why one does not walk out onto the gravel. Outside of Japan gardens need to be educational as well as visually inspiring.

Regardless of the gravel, all of the other features combined do a nice job of creating a kare-sansui. However, it should be noted that the entire scene is best examined from the pavilion.

From this vantage point one can relax and contemplate the larger landscape that the garden creates. Interestingly, the garden website offers the following description: "The curving shoreline of the dry lake, with its coves and expanses, may be likened to the Japanese character meaning ‘heart,’ but the design of the garden draws the viewer into its solitude, to contemplate the heart within." 

Although I am struggling to see the written character (Kanji) for heart, I do agree that the beauty of the garden fills my heart with joy.

Normandale Japanese Garden

The Normandale Japanese Garden is a 2 acre garden that resides behind the campus of Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota. Groundbreaking occurred in 1972 and the garden opened in 1976.

Website: https://www.normandale.edu/why-normandale/community/japanese-garden/index.html

Many of the plantings within are local to Minnesota, yet the result is an authentic Japanese garden. The many Japanese inspired hardscape features also contribute to the authenticity. It should be noted that I visited in early September - too soon for fall colors, and too late for spring blossoms. Hence the overwhelmingly green appearance of the garden in the photos that follow.

Two sides of the garden are walled and help differentiate the garden from the buildings of the community college. However the path between the two leading towards the garden gate is an equally inviting stroll.

After passing through the gate, one is confronted with a large square shelter. The views from within offer framed glimpses of the garden.

The hexagon shaped Bentendo and the Taiko-bashi bridge are the most inspiring structures of the garden. 

The hexagon structure is dedicated to Benten, the Goddess of Fortune and has characteristics of similar Benten-based island structures I have seen in Japan.

The garden is well maintained, and many of the trees are professionally pruned and cared for. For a garden of this size, it reflects an enormous amount of effort to keep the garden looking pristine. 

The large flat bridge is another major architectural feature of the garden. 

Rock features and a large waterfall represent a mountain landscape scene and is an impressive hardscape feature.

An umbrella-shaped round shelter along the ridge provides wonderful views of the entire garden from a higher elevation. I especially liked the shrubbery along the stone steps. It was extremely well maintained.

There is also a small zig-zag bridge near the flat bridge. However, I found this feature to be the least authentic. It did provide a water crossing from which a visitor could feed the koi fish in the pond, but with only one "zig" it seemed incomplete. 

However, I did like the platform within the rear stream area. It too added an element upon which visitors could interact with nature - another koi feeding area. Perhaps it was the stepping stones, and use of cedar, now aged gray, that gave it a more authentic feeling.

There were also two islands in the pond, a larger turtle island, and smaller island metaphorically representing a crane. These types of islands are common in Japanese gardens and are known to reflect the notion of longevity. The beauty of these islands was a direct result of the care demonstrated by the garden crew in maintaining the trees which resided upon the islands.

Strolling through the garden also offered exceptional views of many of the features, especially from the far side of the pond. The viewing experience changed as one traversed the pathway, the result of a well thought out garden design.

There were also some hidden gems that required one to slow down and discover garden scenes and features, similar to discovering enlightenment. These included a nine-tiered stone pagoda, the interior of the main gate, and views of the garden from outside its walls.

The Normandale Japanese Garden was a real pleasure to experience. In fact, I visited two days in a row - once to get afternoon photos, and again the next day to get morning photos. More importantly, I visited twice because the garden was such an outstanding example of a North American Japanese garden that I could not resist spending more time walking its paths. Not too large, and not too small, this beautify maintained garden was just right. It's a garden well worth visiting.