Shoyoen (the Japanese Garden) is a work of art. The plants chosen for Shoyoen frequently have symbolic attributes and literary references as well as being valued for their physical characteristics such as colour, shape and size.
Certain plants are iconic and often associated with Japanese gardens. These include the cherry tree (sakura), bamboo (take), plum tree (ume) and pine tree (matsu). In East Asian Culture the grouping of the bamboo, plum tree and pine tree is regarded as particularly auspicious. Motifs combining these three plants occur regularly on Japanese Imari porcelain.
Cherry, plum and pine trees all grow in Shoyoen. The cherry blossom was considered an especially beautiful and important symbol for Japanese samurai because at the height of its beauty it would inevitably fall to the ground to die. Samurai also had to be willing to sacrifice themselves in their prime.
Plum trees have many symbolic references but are often associated with spring.
In traditional Japanese aesthetics matsu (pine) represents “long life”, but its homonym is the verb matsu meaning “to wait”. Accordingly, in many Japanese poems, pine trees are represented as waiting for something or someone.
Bamboo has significant cultural, economic and historic importance in Asia. It serves in the Japanese tea ceremony both as a material and as a design motif. Bamboo is also used throughout Shoyoen to provide ornamental fencing and was used in the construction of the new gate, the sukiyamon.
The Japanese Red Pine (Pinus densifola), Japanese Black Pine (Pinus thubergii) and Japanese White Pine (Pinus parviflora) are all popular in Japanese gardens. The Japanese Black Pine and Japanese Red Pine grow in Shoyoen. They represent the coastline and the mountains respectively, a reference to their natural habitat.
Visitors entering the sukiyamon of Shoyoen are symbolically leaving behind the chaos of the world and entering a place of reflection imbued with thousands of years of Japanese cultural and religious history.
By Ian McAlister & Karen Hagan