In an increasingly busy world, people are trying to find a little bit of tranquility and quiet. Japanese gardens are little pockets of peace where sound and feeling play just as big a part as the flowers planted. Discover the fundamentals of Japanese garden design and apply them to your garden this season.

It isn’t easy to pinpoint exactly what Japanese style is because it’s more of a feeling. But the second you step foot in a Japanese garden, you immediately know.
Like most signature designs, the Japanese garden style has changed over many centuries to accommodate varying religious and cultural influences. The Japanese gardens we know today are ones where we find tranquility and peace.
I’m very lucky to live in Vancouver, as it has plenty of Japanese influence in our gardens and even our street trees—yes, we have the coveted ornamental cherry blossoms every spring.
The Nitobe Memorial Garden at UBC is considered one of the five most authentic Japanese gardens located outside of Japan. Not to mention we also have the beautiful Chiba Gardens in North Vancouver and the Stone Garden at VanDusen Botanical Garden. You’ll see many pictures of these gardens in this post!
Let’s get into the history of the Japanese garden style in North America, as well as the fundamental elements of creating a Japanese garden design.
- Japanese Plants in the Pacific Northwest
- Vancouver’s Sister City, Yokohama
- Cultural Note
- The Key Components of a Japanese Garden Design
- Japanese Gardens Are a Feeling
- Meditation and Tranquility
- Japanese Garden Plants
- Adding a Water Element
- Thoughtful Design Choices
- More Japanese Gardening Influence

Japanese Plants in the Pacific Northwest
Many Japanese immigrants moved to the Pacific Northwest starting in the 1800s, bringing with them not only their culture and food but also their agricultural practices and even plants. Japan and the Pacific Northwest have very similar climates and even (at times) landscapes.
Japan is a cool and damp country, where the summers tend to be humid and rainy. They have a temperate rainforest, as well as mountains and oceans.
Sounds similar to British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, right?
It’s no wonder that many of the beautiful Japanese garden plants thrive in Vancouver, with such similar conditions. You’ll find plenty of Japanese maples, dogwoods, azaleas, rhododendrons, and of course, cherry trees.
You may want a different plant aesthetic if you live in a sunny and dry climate. That being said, read some of the Japanese garden design principles listed below, as they can be applied to many different kinds of gardens.

Vancouver’s Sister City, Yokohama
For decades, Vancouver has had a deep connection with Japanese gardens. In the late 1800s to the early 1900s, it was popular in Vancouver to plant large shade trees like maple, elm, and plane along sidewalks and boulevards.
In the early 1930s, Vancouver received their first cherry trees as a gift from the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama, Japan, to include in the war memorial at Stanley Park, honouring the Japanese Canadians who fought in WWI.
As we were gifted more cherry trees, planting practices changed as the large shade trees started to affect sewers, sidewalks, and canopies. In their place, they decided to plant more ornamental flowering trees like cherry, plum, and hawthorn. Soon enough, Vancouver became a flowering haven in the springtime.

In 1965, Yokohama became one of Vancouver’s official sister cities. Chiba, Japan, is also the sister city of North Vancouver.
Now, the city has shifted back to encourage more diversity and native plants among our boulevards, but they continue to plant cherry trees in high-profile areas. Those cherry trees planted decades ago are slowly reaching their end of stage life. Organizations like the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival offer small tree seedlings to help regenerate the trees and the beauty we have every spring.
Cultural Note
Vancouver and Canada have not always had a pleasant relationship with Japan. During WWII, 22,000 Japanese Canadians were sent to internment camps, many of whom were born in Canada. It wasn’t until 1949 that Japanese Canadians were allowed to return to the West Coast and given back their rights as Canadian citizens. You can read more about this piece of Canadian history here. There are many sister cities across western Canada and the US, as they sought to rebuild cultural connections and help Japanese Canadians and Americans heal.

The Key Components of a Japanese Garden Design
If you’re looking to create a Japanese garden or want to learn from this specific style, here are some elements of Japanese garden design to remember.
Japanese Gardens Are a Feeling
One of the things I love most about a Japanese garden is how you can have a complete experience while walking through it without all the bright flowers. Many gardens are attractive because of the flowers they grow, and most botanical gardens are centered around what’s currently blooming.
To me, flowers are the jewelry of the garden. But they can be beautiful without all the glitz and glam, too. And that’s what a Japanese garden is all about: the feeling behind the garden.
Japanese gardens look at the overall garden instead of focusing on one element. Each structure and element is carefully chosen to tell one larger story. And the simplicity of the design plays into that. You might not notice all the details, but you’ll feel it.
So the first thing you should ask yourself is, “What feeling do you want to experience when you step into your garden?”

Meditation and Tranquility
Japanese gardens have a tranquil energy around them, and most will incorporate some kind of meditative element to them as well.
Many of the pathways are deliberately made to help you meditate throughout the garden, some being circular so you can do a slow meditation from start to finish as the light dapples through the trees. The entire space is ideal for contemplation and mindfulness.
One way to meditate when walking through a Japanese garden is to look at the small details. Don’t focus on them, but take it all in and experience the entire feeling of the space.

Japanese Garden Plants
My other favourite element of the Japanese garden style is the focus on greenery. Because of the wet climate in Vancouver, we can enjoy greenery year-round, and I’m sure that’s true in some places in Japan as well.
In a Japanese garden, you’ll see every shade of green. The moss will be left to cover stones, the ferns will poke up in the transition spaces, and the trees overhead will cover you in greenery.
The plants in a Japanese garden represent the changing seasons, so you want to include plants that celebrate that. Spring bloomers and bright autumnal leaves are very much a part of this.
When looking at Japanese-style gardens, you’ll also notice more blank space than other gardens. While you could call this minimalist, it’s more that they’ve put thought into every plant that will be included. Spaces don’t have to be full to be beautiful.

Adding a Water Element
Most Japanese gardens will feature a water element in them. For these gardens, water represents a life-giving force and is often used to create a miniature sea within the landscape.
These water features can range from a small fountain providing ambient sound and tranquility to a larger pond with plants growing in it, creating a wholeness in the landscape.
Water also allows you to add other elements, such as bridges, aquatic plants, and benches. Here’s an example from the Nitobe Memorial Garden. A zig-zag bridge goes over the pond because evil spirits can only travel in straight lines in Japanese folklore. This bridge breaks the negative energy, so they cannot pass.


Thoughtful Design Choices
Every part of a Japanese garden is carefully curated, from the rocks to the trees. For instance, at the Chiba Gardens, the stream begins as one and then forks into two separate streams to symbolize how people grow together and then separate on different life paths.
Rocks and rock gardens are often used in Japanese gardens to represent the mountains and landscapes the same way that water represents the sea. This is known as miniaturization.
Japanese gardens often have many small landscapes grouped to create one large landscape. Pathways will guide you through the garden so you can see new sides to it that may have been hidden before.

Even in the smallest of Japanese gardens, you can create miniature landscapes, hidden elements, incorporate symbolism, and create an overall message of tranquility.