Photos of ideas

A lot of the pictures I take are of ideas: Bits of design, combinations of plants -- cool stuff I want to remember to play with in my own garden. And half the time I never go back to those pictures and actually DO anything with them. Blogging projects are always a good way to make me actually do something I've long been thinking about, so I'm going to do a series of posts with photos that represent some cool gardening idea to me.

 To start off: This image I took in the summer of 2005 when I was working as an intern at a nursery in Saitama, Japan.

 (Do click on the image to view it full size -- it is better that way)
This garden is in front of a small, neighborhood shrine, and perfectly creates the quiet, restful, sacred atmosphere appropriate for this space. If I was gardening this space, I think I would be tempted to throw in variegated foliage, or a few slashes or flowers -- but the restrained colors really work, and play up the gorgeous contrasts in texture. And the stone trough it just about perfect -- again, simple, but not boring. Just enough decoration, the color nicely matching the stones set around it. As you can only sort of see in this picture, it is filled with still water, which I love. No trickling waterfall or fountain -- just placid water.

Best of all, like so many Japanese gardens, this one is tiny, and so could easily translate to the smallest yard. I want to create a small, peaceful, sacred nook like this in my garden. I just need to figure out where.