Monty Don's Japanese Gardens S01e02 (2019)
Monty Don returns to Japan during the fiery blaze of autumn. He begins as he did in spring, at one of 'the three great gardens of Japan' to learn how they protect the garden from the coming winter. He follows the history of the Japanese garden through the military strongholds of leaders past to the many styles, new and old, of the iconic stroll garden, and discovers a slice of Victorian England in the heart of Tokyo. He learns how the Japanese are weaving nature into their concrete urban jungle. He then explores rooftop gardens, takes lessons in the intricate art of bonsai and moss balls, as well as visiting an astounding modern feat of architecture and garden design. He ends his journey by the Sea of Japan at a place that literally makes art out of its gardens.
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00:00The snow-clad slopes of Mt Fuji are one of the stunning images of Japan that we all recognise.
00:07But despite a fascination for the country and its culture,
00:11there remains something mysterious and intriguing.
00:16And although we may admire Japanese gardens and our own gardens are full of Japanese plants
00:21like cherries and maples and hostas,
00:24few of us really understand or know them.
00:28They remain an enigma.
00:31So I have set out to try and get to the heart of the culture
00:37that lies behind some of the most beautiful gardens in the world.
00:43I shall be visiting Japan during its two most radiant seasons,
00:48spring and autumn.
00:51I'll follow the development of stroll gardens,
00:55experience the serenity of a tea garden
00:59and learn the secrets of creating a Zen landscape.
01:04The stone said to me, it's OK.
01:07This angle, this position.
01:10The stone is talking to you? Yes.
01:13I'm setting out to relish, contemplate
01:17and hopefully learn to understand these iconic gardens of Japan.
01:26MUSIC FADES
01:41I'm starting this trip as I did my first one in spring,
01:45by coming here to Kenroku-en.
01:48And that's because back in April, the head gardener, Mr Shishime,
01:52really must come back and see what the garden looks like in autumn.
01:57So here I am.
02:00And glowing in the autumn sunshine, it looks pretty good.
02:06Kenroku-en was originally created as a private garden
02:10attached to Kanazawa Castle
02:12and is one of the most celebrated in Japan.
02:16Keeping it looking as good as this is a big job.
02:20I saw just how labour-intensive that work was when I was here in spring.
02:25Six months later, it's clear that the pace hasn't let up.
02:29The women are still hand-weeding the moss
02:32to remove any single blades of grass,
02:35although now accompanied by burning coils of repellent
02:39to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
02:45The cherry is undoubtedly the national tree in spring
02:49and the celebrations for its blossom are huge,
02:52but there are also great celebrations in autumn
02:56for the colouring of the leaves, particularly of maples.
03:00Now, Japan has many different kinds of maples
03:03and they all have these glorious hues of yellow, orange and red.
03:08And there's a real festive air.
03:11The weather is glorious, people are out and about,
03:15to the falling of the autumn leaves.
03:20And being Japan, there is a specific term for this festivity,
03:25which literally translates as red-leaf hunting.
03:33This couple have come to Kenroku-en to pose for their wedding photos.
03:38They aren't actually getting married till next spring,
03:41but they're getting married early
03:43whilst the garden still provides the perfect backdrop.
03:47They're standing in front of the same pines
03:50that I watched being pruned last spring.
03:55I now want to see the process of yukitsuri,
03:59where the trees are strung with rope so that they look like giant maples.
04:04Hello. Hello.
04:06How nice to see you. Come on in.
04:08I'm so glad I've seen it.
04:10It's good to meet up again with Mr Shishime, the head gardener,
04:14and he explains that these rope structures
04:16are there to protect the trees from snow damage.
04:19He takes me off to show me how it's done.
04:27Vertical bamboo poles are lashed to the trunk
04:31and then dozens of rice-straw ropes are carefully lowered from the top
04:36to be tied to the branches,
04:38which prevents them from bending and even breaking
04:42under the weight of the snow.
04:48The gardening team make this complicated and precise process
04:52look deceptively easy.
04:58Yes, of course, I'd love to. I'd absolutely love to.
05:01I realise that the invitation is a rare honour that I can't possibly refuse,
05:05but it is a little daunting.
05:07OK, you show me the correct way to do it.
05:15Oh, very simple. Very simple. I'll do it.
05:21I'm very honoured.
05:24I'm fatter than you.
05:26God, blimey!
05:28There we are. That's better. Very beautiful.
05:32I have to say that wearing proper Japanese circuiters
05:36is probably the summit of my life's ambitions and dreams.
05:39I'm just going to savour this moment for one second.
05:42Right, now I'm ready to go.
05:44OK, let's come on up.
05:47Let's go on up a little bit higher.
05:49If I fall, it won't matter terribly.
05:52Here we go.
05:54So...
05:57Actually, no, hang on a minute.
05:59So...
06:02It all looks so simple on the ground,
06:04and yet now I've completely forgotten how to tie the knot.
06:08So we tie here.
06:10And then like that.
06:13Is that right?
06:16Now cut, yes, of course.
06:18OK.
06:22That's my contribution to the garden for this year.
06:29There's an intensive one-month period of yukitsuri at Kenrokuen,
06:34and that can take up to 500 gardeners tying up over 800 trees.
06:40The ropes then remain until March when the snow begins to melt.
06:46When I was here in spring,
06:48I wasn't quite sure how to react to all the struts and supports
06:53that you inevitably see in a Japanese garden,
06:55some of them really quite dominant on the larger trees.
06:58But watching the strings being tied on, I suddenly got it.
07:03What I realised is it's all part of the same performance.
07:08In other words, the strings holding up the branches
07:11are as significant and as important to the garden
07:14as the branches themselves.
07:16And the Japanese enjoy and celebrate it all equally.
07:29Right across Japan,
07:31millions of people make a special outing to their favourite viewing spots
07:35during the red-leaf-hunting autumn season.
07:38And although it's a weekday in November,
07:40Kenrokuen is crowded with people
07:43enjoying the beauty of the magnificent display.
07:48It's been an absolute joy to come back to Kenrokuen
07:52and see it in its autumn clothes.
07:55But it is time to move on.
07:57So the next stop is Kyoto.
08:07When I first visited Kyoto back in spring,
08:10I traced some of the history of Japanese gardens.
08:14Eighth-century boating gardens,
08:17through the use of moss in Buddhist temples,
08:21to a 12th-century tea garden
08:23and the 15th-century zen gardens.
08:29And I'm now back to pick up that story
08:32at the start of the 17th century during the Edo period.
08:43This is Nijo Castle.
08:45Although Japanese castles were built as military strongholds,
08:49by the 17th century, it was a period of sustained peace
08:53and their gardens were becoming a major feature.
08:57This one at Nijo Castle was made in 1603 for the shogun,
09:01who was the political and military leader of Japan.
09:06The garden, set amongst the huge halls and defensive walls,
09:10was all part of the display of his power, wealth and sophistication.
09:16And then, in 1626, the emperor came to visit.
09:20So the whole place was revamped.
09:22The castle was made larger and the garden was also rebuilt.
09:28This was a major reconstruction, just for this one visit.
09:32A new palace was built on the southern side of the enlarged pond,
09:36creating a new viewpoint to admire the remodelled rocks and water.
09:42The palace, built especially for the emperor,
09:45has long since disappeared,
09:47but the footprint remains of a corridor that ran down here,
09:51and this was a foundation stone,
09:53and then there was a little pavilion going out over the water.
09:57The whole layout of the garden was altered
10:00to look its best viewed from this point.
10:03So when he sat here,
10:05he would be duly impressed by its beauty and grandeur.
10:12The pond features three islands.
10:15The island of the immortals, to entice the gods to Nijo,
10:19flanked by two smaller ones, Crane Island and Turtle Island,
10:23both of which represent longevity.
10:32Over and above the history,
10:34I find the mechanics of a garden like this
10:37I find the mechanics of a garden like this so extraordinary,
10:42because all these stones are placed with exquisite precision,
10:47and yet they're colossal.
10:49I mean, look at this bridge.
10:51It's an enormous lump of rock.
10:54And I have no idea how on earth they managed it.
11:07This garden has an austerity that doesn't alter with the seasons,
11:12but just as at Kenrokuen,
11:15the grounds here are filled with visitors
11:18enjoying the maples in their seasonal glory.
11:24People of all ages are strolling happily in the sun,
11:29and like me, exploring the market stalls
11:32that sell a wide range of suitably autumnal fare.
11:36Although it was only available once upon a time to a privileged few,
11:40any visitor can now enjoy a traditional tea ceremony
11:44within the historic walls of the castle and its garden.
11:52I'm setting off again now because I want to visit some stroll gardens,
11:56which are one of the most enduring forms of all the Japanese garden styles.
12:01There are different kinds and forms of stroll garden
12:04from different historical periods,
12:06and to visit the first means crossing the country to the capital, Tokyo.
12:15The Garden of Rikugien is a fine example of a classic stroll garden.
12:20Set in the middle of this crowded, chaotic city,
12:24it's an oasis of calm and beautiful serenity.
12:28Stroll gardens were a new style of garden design
12:32that evolved in the 17th century.
12:35And whereas rock gardens were completely static,
12:39and tea gardens just had a simple path to the tea house,
12:43the whole essence of a stroll garden
12:46was that you moved around it, around these curving paths,
12:50along a series of viewpoints
12:53to admire vistas that you wouldn't otherwise see.
12:56And they were created for a new class, really.
12:59It was a samurai that had evolved from being the warriors
13:03of an earlier period to a moneyed elite.
13:08And they made these gardens as an expression of privilege and power.
13:16The garden was completed in 1702 by a samurai lord,
13:21and it remained in private hands until 1938,
13:24when it was donated to the Tokyo city government,
13:27and turned into a public park.
13:30So, whereas for centuries only a tiny handful of the elite
13:34had access to it, Rikugien can now be enjoyed by everyone.
13:39The garden has evolved to a certain extent,
13:42but the function has not changed at all.
13:50The garden's name, Rikugien,
13:53refers to the six principles of poetry,
13:56derived from ancient China,
13:58and the layout of the garden is based on a collection of poems
14:01describing the scenery of Wakayama Bay in southern Japan.
14:06The guide, Eriko Yokohama, explained it to me.
14:10The founder of this garden tried to reproduce
14:14the 88 points of beautiful scenery in the garden,
14:18and they put the stone markers, 88 stone markers, in each place.
14:23These are little stone pillars that you see. Yes.
14:25So the idea is you walk around and stand at each,
14:28and then look out and there is a scene. Yes.
14:31Now, I see the garden is beginning to be prepared for winter,
14:35but I don't know what these straw mats,
14:38very beautiful, around the pine trees.
14:40Could you tell me about them?
14:42The bad insect go into the straw mat... Yes.
14:45..and then try to keep warm during the wintertime.
14:49They cannot go down because the lower part is tied very tightly.
14:54So, in March, they take out the straw mat and burn it.
14:59So that's a very ecological way of destroying the bad insect.
15:04In Japan, even pest control is made into a refined
15:09and traditional form of decoration.
15:15Each bend reveals a dramatic vista,
15:18and to have such a superb garden, open to all,
15:21in the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world,
15:24is a great luxury.
15:28I'm now going to pick up the story of these gardens
15:31at the beginning of the 20th century.
15:34As we discovered in the last programme,
15:36that's when, as a result of a great Japanese exhibition in 1910,
15:40the British became fascinated by all things Japanese,
15:44and there was even a brief fashion for making Japanese gardens back home.
15:49But there is a garden not far from Rikugien
15:52which shows the other side of that coin.
16:00You would be forgiven for thinking
16:02that here was another typically Japanese garden.
16:06There are maples, stone lanterns, cloud pruning,
16:11the familiar repertoire.
16:14But walk up the steps to the next level
16:17and you are greeted with a view that is anything but typical.
16:24This is not what you would expect to see in the middle of Tokyo.
16:29It's an English garden,
16:31made by a man called Josiah Condor in 1917.
16:36He was born in Surrey, and Condor had come to Japan to be a professor,
16:40and he's regarded, really, as the father
16:43of modern Western Japanese architecture,
16:47and as a result is a revered figure here in Japan.
16:52This is his enduring contribution.
16:56And what's fascinating about it
16:58is that it is not just a slice of the West,
17:01it's the slice of the West 100 years ago.
17:06At the very same time that Japanese gardens
17:09were being introduced to Britain,
17:11Condor was making a very English garden here at Kyu-Furukawa.
17:16It's strange for me to see roses blooming in the middle of November,
17:20but because of the hot, wet Tokyo summers,
17:23they're pruned back hard after their first May flowering,
17:26and then have this second display in autumn.
17:29Amongst the 90 or so varieties
17:31are some very familiar names, including Queen Elizabeth.
17:35And there's New Dawn and Dorothy Perkins.
17:41There are an unusual proportion of hybrid T's,
17:44which are a cross between china and shrub roses.
17:48But, of course, these were immensely popular
17:51in the early 20th century, when this garden was made.
17:56This is probably one of the most famous
17:59This is probably one of the most famous roses ever grown.
18:02It's called Peace, and I like the story behind it,
18:05particularly in an English garden here in Japan.
18:08It was developed in France just before the Second World War,
18:11but there was no time to trademark the name or even think of it.
18:15And so cuttings were sent all round the world
18:17as the Germans were invading France.
18:19These cuttings were grown on by different people
18:22and all given different names.
18:24But after the war, the French grower contacted
18:27the British field marshal, Alan Brooke,
18:29and said, could it be called after him?
18:31And he said, no, it would be much better
18:34if the rose was known by the name of Peace.
18:38So that's what it was called, wherever it had been grown,
18:42and immediately was successful.
18:44Hundreds of millions of this rose
18:47have been sold and grown all over the world,
18:50and it continues to be one of the very best hybrid T's ever developed.
18:58The colour that these roses bring to the garden
19:02is exceptional here in Japan,
19:04and this clearly delights the many visitors.
19:08I'm hoping that the director of the garden, Atsuko Hanafusa,
19:12can explain that fascination.
19:14There are lots of visitors here.
19:16Do you think that people see these flowers as exotic?
19:21Because, of course, for us in Britain, they're very normal.
19:28If people like the roses so much,
19:32why do we not see more roses, or indeed flowers, in Japanese gardens?
19:58KONDA SPEAKS JAPANESE
20:16Konda's very British, very Edwardian garden
20:20reflects a period when Japan was rapidly westernising,
20:24and it remains an exotic oddity here in the middle of Tokyo.
20:29And for me, it's been a surprising treat
20:31to see such a big collection of superb hybrid T roses.
20:36They've become very unfashionable at home,
20:40but this garden, locked in a time warp on the other side of the world,
20:44shows that they can be exquisitely beautiful.
20:51Before I head to my next garden,
20:53I'm going to make a detour to a suburb north of Tokyo called Kawaguchi
20:58that's known for being a gardening hub.
21:02I'm visiting a garden centre
21:04located at an intersection between two motorways.
21:07It's what is known as a roadside station or pit stop,
21:11which are government-designated rest areas
21:13found along major roads and highways all over Japan.
21:17Instead of the all-purpose service station,
21:20these pit stops promote tourism and trade
21:23by only selling specific local goods and produce.
21:30Wherever I travel, I like to visit nurseries and garden centres
21:36as well as the gardens of the great and the good,
21:38because, as a gardener, it's just as informative
21:41to find out what real people are buying and planting in their gardens
21:45as admiring the finished product.
21:51The thing that strikes me straightaway about this place
21:54is the sheer size of it.
21:56It's bigger than anything I've seen in the UK,
21:59with a huge variety of plants and seeds.
22:04I mean, it's actually a fascinating mix of plants.
22:07You would never, never see this in Europe.
22:13And some of the prices are jaw-droppingly high.
22:17You wouldn't find such expensive plants
22:19in your average British garden centre.
22:22That's £1,000.
22:25It's just amazing.
22:29Hello, hello. What are you buying today?
22:32What are you looking for?
22:34What are you looking for?
22:45And what do you like to grow?
22:47What's your favourite plants to grow in your garden?
23:05It's interesting that this lady is buying brightly coloured plants,
23:09like violets and pansies, that seem to me to be very Western,
23:13which is in stark contrast to the more subdued tones
23:17of the traditional Japanese gardens I've seen so far.
23:21Hello. What are you buying here?
23:25Do you like these? Do you grow them at home?
23:34Do you garden a lot? Do you have a big garden?
23:48Coming here has been a fascinating lesson
23:51in what private gardening is like in Japan,
23:54because it seems that people are selecting things
23:57that are much more ephemeral and colourful
24:00than the received idea of what a Japanese garden looks like.
24:05MUSIC PLAYS
24:10I'm continuing my education
24:12by heading back to the garden capital of Japan, Kyoto.
24:19And I'm now going to follow the development of the straw garden
24:22from the 17th century
24:24and visit one that was made at the end of the 19th century
24:27and that is starting to absorb Western changes.
24:35MUSIC PLAYS
24:38Murinan is a Meiji-era straw garden,
24:42and its purpose was not only to show off the wealth and power of the owner,
24:46but also to provide entertainment for important guests.
24:50So this garden, like all straw gardens of every period,
24:54is designed to have a series of changing views,
24:58as you follow a path that weaves through water and rocks,
25:01trees and shrubs, and often incorporates borrowed landscapes.
25:05And although the garden is actually little more than an acre,
25:09with clever design that both reveals distant wooded hills
25:12and hides the surrounding city, it seems much larger.
25:16The garden was completed in 1898
25:19and was designed by one of the leading garden designers of the period,
25:23Ogawa Jihei,
25:25and the home of one of Japan's most powerful leaders,
25:28the future prime minister, General Yamagata Aritomo.
25:35Murinan shows some of the growing Western influence
25:39by successfully combining many traditional Japanese features
25:43with the tightly mown lawns of an English country garden.
25:51I think anybody who's gardened in the West takes grass for granted,
25:56but you can't do that in Japan.
25:58To see grass on this scale is really unusual.
26:02It's Western.
26:04Grass and moss flow equally into each other,
26:07and if ever there was a symbol for Western influence and Japanese culture,
26:13it's the way that those two work together.
26:19General Yamagata was a garden designer in his own right
26:22and had close involvement with the creation of Murinan.
26:26He specified the exact location of the waterfall
26:29in the far corner of the garden,
26:31close to both the road and the nearby Lake Biwa Canal.
26:34And the canal had been built in the 1880s
26:37to help reinvigorate industry in Kyoto,
26:40and it was Yamagata himself
26:42who had signed off the permission for its construction.
26:45And perhaps that's why he felt
26:47that he could simply siphon off water from it into the garden,
26:52and the pretense that he gave was that it was necessary for fire control.
26:57Well, the result is the garden now has this splendid stream
27:03running through it, opening out into a pond
27:06and creating movement and energy right through the middle.
27:13MUSIC PLAYS
27:21Mr Yamagata made a tea house in the garden,
27:25and the emperor learnt of this
27:28and sent him a gift of two pine trees, which he planted.
27:31Now, because the emperor sent them,
27:33he looked after them with special attention.
27:36The pines flourished, and, as Yamagata wrote,
27:40they were like dragons rising through the clouds.
27:43He sent a photo of them to the emperor,
27:46who replied in the form of a short poem expressing his pleasure
27:50and the hope that the pine trees would keep Yamagata company
27:54for many years to come.
27:58Now, they're no longer here,
28:00but the place is marked by these stone squares.
28:03In fact, there's another younger pine growing inside one of them.
28:06They're all part of the history of the garden.
28:16The use of the borrowed landscape of the distant wooded hills
28:20expands the sense of space.
28:23The gardeners maintain this illusion
28:25by pruning the surrounding barrier of trees to just the right height
28:29so that they frame the mountains
28:31whilst hiding the invading city skyline.
28:36Two things strike me most about this.
28:38The first is that the trees are actually much smaller
28:42than they look from a distance,
28:44and that's because the garden uses really clever perspective.
28:48But more importantly is because they are pruning it,
28:52you see the borrowed landscape.
28:55So the hillside in the far distance becomes part of the garden,
28:59and that makes the garden seem much bigger.
29:03And that feature of the borrowed landscape
29:06is a really important part of the next garden I'm going to see.
29:21This is Tairu Sanso,
29:23another turn-of-the-century straw garden not far from Murinan.
29:27I had expected that the garden would be best appreciated
29:30by following the paths,
29:32but it turned out that the most spectacular views
29:34were from inside the building.
29:36So I put on the clean white socks I'd been instructed to bring
29:42and gingerly stepped into this immaculate house.
29:50It was good advice
29:52because the garden does look superb from here.
29:57At this time of year when you get that rosy spread
30:01of the apples and the cherries as the autumn colour begins to hit it,
30:06it really does feel as good as any painting.
30:10Someone said to me that the European aristocracy
30:14collected paintings for their houses,
30:16whereas the wealthy Japanese made living art out of their gardens.
30:24And just like any good work of art,
30:26there are no irrelevant or chance details.
30:30Everything in the foreground perfectly plays with perspective.
30:35And the waterfall and the watermill
30:38are all composed as carefully as a painting.
30:46If you wanted to hire someone
30:49to create your garden as a living work of art,
30:53then you needed the best designer,
30:55and Jihei Ogawa was the man of the moment.
30:58He resigned Murinan ten years earlier,
31:01so he was hired here to do the same sort of thing,
31:04which is to create a landscape that feels grand and dramatic,
31:10packed with these extraordinary tableaus and views,
31:14and yet, in the middle of Kyoto, in a relatively small space.
31:18This garden, believe it or not,
31:20is only just over half the size of my own garden at home.
31:25It seems huge, with the water running everywhere,
31:29trees rising up the hillside.
31:32The scale is enormous, even though the space is very limited.
31:51I'm hearing two waterfalls.
31:53Right now, we've passed from one waterfall to the other,
31:58but I can only see one.
32:00So when I'm back there,
32:02I'm assuming that the sound comes from the water that I can see.
32:06But in fact, there's another one.
32:09And the garden is full of those slights of hand.
32:12So when you're sitting on the balcony,
32:14looking out on this tableau, this beautiful scene,
32:17the sound accompaniment is working perfectly,
32:21coming from a completely different source.
32:29Taru Senso is one of the few privately-owned historic gardens in Kyoto.
32:35It is immaculately maintained
32:37and exemplifies the almost obsessional artistry and detail
32:42behind Japanese gardens.
32:45Stroll gardens remain as popular today in Japan
32:49as they were in the Edo period.
32:52And there are lots to see in Kyoto.
32:55But there is one modern one in particular
32:58that I want to visit while I'm here.
33:03In the first programme, I went to see a garden
33:08designed by Mirei Shigemori.
33:12And he had taken a traditional idea and given it a real modern twist.
33:17And this temple on the outskirts of Kyoto,
33:20I'm told that he has done the same thing with the stroll garden.
33:30This is Matsuo Taisha, which is one of Kyoto's oldest shrines.
33:36Its origins can be traced back to 700 AD.
33:41The story is that a nobleman on horseback
33:45came across a turtle bathing under a waterfall.
33:48This was a profoundly auspicious sign
33:51because turtles are considered symbols of longevity and wisdom.
33:55So he founded the shrine on the spot.
34:02In 1973, a new series of buildings were completed.
34:07Mirei Shigemori was commissioned to make gardens to accompany them.
34:14Shigemori based this garden upon the ancient Chinese legend
34:20of this winding stream.
34:23And cups of sake would be put into the water
34:27so it would work its way downstream to reach poets
34:31to give them inspiration to write suitable verses.
34:35And what's really unusual is actually the water itself
34:39because Shigemori hardly ever liked to use actual water,
34:44tending to use gravel or sand to represent it instead.
34:59I really like the way that Shigemori
35:02manages to convey the idea of a large landscape
35:06in what is really quite a small space.
35:09It captures the essence of a whole hillside
35:14and the stream running through it.
35:24Tomo Taka has been a priest here for over 15 years.
35:28Tomo Taka has been a priest here for over 15 years
35:32so he can tell me how this garden has evolved.
35:35I gather that you saw this garden very early on.
35:38What did it look like then?
35:59So why do you think that that has changed?
36:03What has made those stones mellow?
36:29So, a new garden sooner or later becomes an old garden.
36:35Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
36:42Shigemori died shortly after this garden was made
36:46and it was left to his son to realise his designs
36:49for the rest of the shrine.
36:52Shigemori was a master of taking traditional styles
36:56and combining them with modern conceptual ideas
37:00to create his gardens.
37:02However, the priest Tomo Taka told me that some feel
37:06that this can't be considered a proper Japanese garden
37:10and that it is more akin to modern art.
37:13Well, there are those, like myself,
37:16who believe that this garden is more than just a garden.
37:20There are those, like myself,
37:22who consider that not to be criticism but high praise.
37:3238 million people live in Greater Tokyo
37:36and the city is set to have the world's highest population density by 2030.
37:41So it's not surprising that a garden of any kind
37:44is a luxury that many don't have.
37:50However, the Japanese have other ways
37:53to bring a little greenery into their lives.
37:56One method is to shrink everything down to a smaller scale.
38:02It doesn't matter what style or age of garden you find here in Japan,
38:07the trees and shrubs are invariably tightly pruned and controlled.
38:12But none more so than bonsai.
38:16Bonsai, I think, is something that everybody associates with Japan.
38:21And I've come to a suburb of Tokyo,
38:23which is improbably called Bonsai Village,
38:26to meet a bonsai master.
38:32The word bonsai simply means planted in a shallow container.
38:37It originally came from China,
38:39arriving in Japan at the start of the 14th century.
38:42There are different regional styles.
38:44The average is stubbier trees,
38:46whereas those in Kyoto focus more on elegance.
38:49But every specimen starts out as an ordinary plant.
38:53And it's only skilful pruning and careful training
38:56that eventually turns it into a miniature representation
39:00of a fully grown tree,
39:02some of which can be hundreds of years old.
39:07This is the bonsai nursery Fuyoen, run by Hiroshi Takayama,
39:13a world-renowned bonsai master.
39:16And he's agreed to give me a lesson on the essence of bonsai pruning.
39:20Hello. Now, I'd be very interested to show me what you're doing.
39:24You can see how long the leaves are.
39:27This is the original length.
39:30And here...
39:33This is also a little too long.
39:40So you trim it like this.
39:43It's a nice shape.
39:45Would you like to try one later?
39:47Yes.
39:48So there's your last cut there.
39:50Yes.
39:51So we cut...
39:52Yes, yes.
39:53I just cut there, yeah?
39:55Yes, yes.
39:56Oh, wow.
39:57Yes, yes.
39:59There, that's gone a lot.
40:01That's got very dense, hasn't it?
40:17Smooth, smooth triangular shape.
40:22This is the front.
40:24If you look at it from the side, it looks like this.
40:29And of course, if you look at it from the back, it looks like this.
40:33So you have this shape here.
40:35Yes, yes.
40:36That's the basic.
40:38Thank you very much.
40:41It's always good to have a lesson from a master,
40:44although I appreciate that was very elementary.
40:47And I also appreciate that bonsai is an ancient, ancient tradition
40:52that is very popular today because it's small.
40:55But it's not modern.
40:57And that's what I want to go and see now,
41:00is modern gardening for a modern world.
41:05I've come here for a lesson in kokedama,
41:09that translates as moss balls.
41:11Hello. Hello.
41:13Hello.
41:14Kokedama is becoming increasingly popular
41:17and is a simple way of bringing a piece of living garden
41:21into the world of bonsai.
41:23It's a simple way of bringing a piece of living garden
41:27into the world of bonsai.
41:29It's a simple way of bringing a piece of living garden
41:33into the smallest home.
41:35Chie Kishimoto runs workshops on modern kokedama
41:38and has kindly agreed to give me a crash course.
41:41Well, I think that is very beautiful,
41:43so I'd love to learn how to make something like that.
41:47Could you show me?
41:53Turn that over.
41:55Right.
41:56So just take this and wrap it around.
42:00Just right round the whole thing.
42:05So it's got a nice little blanket.
42:07Now, what is this?
42:09Takezumi.
42:28OK, so now we wrap it up.
42:30Now, if you saw me wrap my Christmas presents,
42:33you would realise that this is going to end badly.
42:36OK.
42:40Well, I will do my best.
42:44And why does it have to be cotton?
42:55I'm going to have to put my glasses on for this
42:57because I can't really see much.
43:04OK.
43:10So it's a tomato rather than an aubergine,
43:13even though it's the same plant.
43:15Oh, come on, this is not too bad.
43:17This could be worse.
43:19Off!
43:21So we cut that.
43:22Yeah?
43:29Of course, that's very clever.
43:31Yeah.
43:32I'm going to have to cut it off.
43:34I'm going to have to cut it off.
43:37Of course, that's very clever.
43:39Clever, but difficult.
43:43There we are.
43:44We're in.
43:47Well, I give...
43:50It's a sad comparison, but OK.
43:59I think it's very beautiful.
44:01And I love the delicacy of it.
44:04Thank you.
44:05Thank you very much for showing me how to do that.
44:11Kokedama are fun,
44:13as well as being a way of bringing a touch of nature into the home,
44:16which is clearly a good thing.
44:19However, on a larger scale,
44:21the opportunities to create new public gardens in Tokyo
44:24are few and far between.
44:28But the government has recognised their importance
44:31and is starting to do something about that.
44:43For all the huge buildings and numbers of people in Tokyo,
44:48there is a concerted effort to green the city.
44:51In fact, there is now a law that every building
44:54that is either new or refurbished over 3,000 square metres
44:59must have 20% of its exterior surface,
45:02including the roof, that is green.
45:05As a result, there are many new roof gardens across the city,
45:09like this one, up on top of a shopping centre,
45:12with a bullet train running just a few feet away.
45:15And although it is an eclectic mix
45:17of Mediterranean and Japanese plants,
45:19it is nevertheless a green space.
45:22And the result is that this overpopulated,
45:25frenetic, extraordinarily busy city
45:28is becoming more pleasant for people to live in
45:31and environmentally much more friendly.
45:41Another unlikely place to find a garden
45:44is in one of the world's busiest airports.
45:47Right in the middle of the domestic departure lounge
45:50of Tokyo's main airport, Haneda,
45:52Haneda is a permanent growing oasis.
45:57It's a garden made by a man who will be familiar
46:00to millions of people in the UK
46:03because it's designed by Mr Ishihara,
46:06who has shown at Chelsea Flower Show for 14 years
46:11and in the process collected no less than ten gold medals.
46:16In fact, this garden is based upon one that he showed
46:21at the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show
46:24and was opened here after the earthquake of the same year
46:27as a statement of the enduring strength and beauty of Japan.
46:32And a garden in the middle of a busy airport
46:36somehow makes sense here
46:38because the Japanese have clearly learnt
46:41to utilise all the space that they can
46:44to create little islands of calm.
46:48Mr Ishihara, hello.
46:50Nice to meet you.
46:51And you, how are you? Very nice to see you.
46:53And to see this garden.
46:55Thank you.
46:56I'd love to see it.
46:59I didn't want to use this plant,
47:02but I wanted people to imagine that this plant was a cherry tree
47:07or a maple tree.
47:09But in this environment, I'm using a different plant.
47:12Because it's interesting,
47:14this garden doesn't appear very Japanese when you first see it.
47:18And what have been the problems of maintaining a garden here?
47:23Because a show garden for Chelsea is there for one week.
47:27This has now been here for nearly seven years.
47:31How easy has that been?
47:40Really, so a difficult environment to make a garden.
47:44Well, I look forward to seeing you at Chelsea.
47:46Again, I hope you will be coming back next year.
47:49Yes!
47:50Thank you.
47:51Thank you very much.
47:53This is clearly a very tricky place to make a garden, but it works.
47:57It softens what would otherwise be a hard and impersonal space.
48:02And this greening process is not just working in public areas.
48:06I've heard of a private house, recently designed and built,
48:10that has incorporated the concept into every aspect of its fabric.
48:15And that's what I want to go and see next.
48:23This building is known as the Trinis House.
48:31The owner, Taki Ishii, pulled down his original house on the site
48:36so he could replace it with this remarkable building.
48:41It took eight years to build, finally being completed in 2017.
48:47And from the outset, the architect, Akihisa Hirata,
48:51wanted to integrate nature and man-made structure.
48:56As a result, the garden has been incorporated
48:59into the very fabric of the building.
49:05As you wind up the outside of the house,
49:07it is a bit like clambering through the branches of a tree,
49:10and, of course, the planting aids that sensation.
49:13There's also a real sense of the external wall being removed,
49:17so these stairs, which would normally be on the inside of the house,
49:21suddenly appear and take you outside the building.
49:24And, of course, that's the point.
49:26It's playing with this idea of the inside and the outside
49:30and the garden, which is normally on a horizontal plane,
49:33rising up and coming along with you on this adventure.
49:37This garden seems to me to be a potential model
49:40for future urban gardens.
49:42And I asked Takeishi what it's like to live in.
49:46Now, was this your idea,
49:48to create this combination of garden and house in the style?
49:52No, actually, that was the architect's idea.
49:55But I told him that I'm an art dealer,
49:59so always in the white cube, all the time,
50:04so I don't want to be in the white cube when I'm in the home.
50:09It's a house full of levels and shapes and forms.
50:13It feels organic. It feels like the house has grown.
50:16Yes, it is. It's like a tree, kind of.
50:19In the forest, I've kind of lost where I am first.
50:23It's a maze, actually, first, but it's very fun.
50:28Well, it's really almost as much a garden as it is a house.
50:31Yeah, yeah.
50:32I spend whole seasons here,
50:36so you can realise the new things each season.
50:40Yes.
50:41Yeah, it's very refreshing.
50:43One of the things that I can't help notice with a Western eye
50:47is the relationship between a sort of very beautiful
50:50and proportioned house like this and other buildings.
50:55And the amazing tangle of wires you have.
50:59Is that something that you think that people would like to change
51:04or that nobody notices?
51:06You live in here, you don't notice that much, actually.
51:11But I kind of like it.
51:14That's Tokyo, actually, downtown Tokyo, I think.
51:18OK, so that's just the spirit of the place.
51:22There's a strong vein of tradition at the core of this building.
51:28Everywhere in Japan, you see the importance of making nature
51:32a part of one's life,
51:34whether that be in the historic straw gardens of Kyoto
51:38or within the walls of an ultra-modern Tokyo house.
51:43There has been so much to take in on this journey
51:46that it is a little overwhelming.
51:49So now I want to get away from the bustle of Tokyo
51:52to see one last garden in a tranquil setting.
52:02I've got to admit, it's a bit of a strange feeling
52:06to be in a place like this,
52:09but it's worth it.
52:11I've come right across the country
52:14to the west coast by the Sea of Japan.
52:17It's been a long journey, but it's worth it
52:20because I've been told about a garden here that I must visit,
52:25which includes components from all the many gardens
52:30that I've visited throughout this series.
52:39This is the Adachi Museum at Yasugi
52:43and has been voted the most beautiful garden in Japan.
52:47There are elements in it of every Japanese garden style,
52:52from zen dry gardens,
52:55moss gardens
52:57and straw gardens.
52:59This is the Adachi Museum.
53:03From zen dry gardens,
53:06moss gardens
53:08and straw gardens
53:10to burrowed landscape
53:12and, of course, the obligatory maples.
53:15The guiding spirit behind this was Zenko Adachi,
53:19who was a farmer's son born and raised in a nearby village.
53:23He created the museum to house his art collection
53:27and made its surrounding garden to provide the perfect setting.
53:34Zenko Adachi learnt his business acumen very early.
53:38As a small boy, he sold charcoal
53:41and he only had straw sandals to wear
53:43and often he'd have to trudge through snow
53:45and walk ten miles every morning.
53:48And he worked out that if he doubled the amount of charcoal
53:51on his burrow, he could make a lot more money
53:53and that sense of entrepreneurship
53:57very quickly earned him a large fortune.
54:01Throughout his life, he travelled across Japan,
54:04visiting gardens
54:06and personally selecting trees and stones to use here.
54:10To the end of his days, he apparently knew every detail
54:14of every single tree and rock in the garden.
54:17This was his obsession and his masterpiece.
54:21Like all masterpieces, you can look, but you can't touch.
54:28The garden can only be viewed
54:30from these large windows inside the building.
54:34And that means that the design and the maintenance
54:38and every detail of it is geared towards that one face.
54:43And the garden is a series of static scenes
54:48to be looked at like paintings.
54:52MUSIC PLAYS
55:01Everything is meticulously thought out and maintained
55:05like a vast Chelsea show garden.
55:08And every clipped shrub, rock and sweeping curve of grass
55:13is calculated for maximum effect.
55:17To help unravel this virtuoso performance,
55:20I'm catching up again with Professor Suzuki,
55:23who I first met back at Kenroku-en in April.
55:29Professor Suzuki, could you explain, really,
55:32the philosophy behind the garden?
55:34That's museum garden.
55:36It was kind of the miniaturised landscape,
55:40the landscape of the seaside,
55:43with pine trees and white sand and ocean for us.
55:49It's kind of the typical landscape of Japan,
55:53very, very popular, very calm,
55:56and it's a mother landscape, I think.
55:59And it's a kind of our mindscape.
56:03As well as being a, I mean, a mindscape,
56:06I like the idea of that, and a distillation,
56:09what is most noticeable to me
56:11is that the whole garden is designed to be seen from these windows.
56:16Yeah.
56:17I mean, even us sitting here, looking out over the pond garden.
56:20Yeah, yeah.
56:21It's a series of pictures, isn't it?
56:23Yes, it is, yes.
56:24He was inspired by the paintings.
56:27Like a Western painting, it's the framing
56:31and also the one piece and one piece and one piece.
56:35And also, in Japan,
56:37it's a traditional way to paint the rolling.
56:41So a scroll, yes. Yeah.
56:43So you should see the garden as a scroll, you move around.
56:46Right, exactly, yes.
56:48It's kind of, well, unique.
56:50Scenery like a sequence with the idea of scrolling pictures, yeah.
57:01I was struck by something Professor Suzuki said,
57:05which is that Adachi,
57:07with all its references to traditional Japanese gardens,
57:11for the first time for a long while,
57:13is inspiring a generation of Japanese
57:16to look at their own history for inspiration
57:19to create new and beautiful gardens.
57:25Well, I've come to the end of my time here in Japan.
57:29And I've been so lucky,
57:31to see a cherry blossom at its very best in spring.
57:35And now in autumn, gardens just raging with a fiery glory.
57:42And I see the whole range of gardens too,
57:45from the very earliest pond gardens
57:47right through the rock gardens of the Zen period,
57:50tea gardens, stroll gardens, up to the most modern.
57:54And I've really started to understand
57:58and learn about the handling of space,
58:00how that the gaps between things can be as important
58:03as any other aspect of the garden.
58:06And the Japanese regard every detail to be important
58:11and therefore worthy of being beautiful.
58:15Modern Japan still has a real awareness of its history.
58:21And there is still a reverence for nature.
58:26And I believe a living delight in its gardens.
58:56© transcript Emily Beynon