Research Garden DesignBrowse photos, get design ideas & see the hottest plants
It seems fitting that my husband and I got lost on our way to Saiho - ji , arguably the most celebrated moss garden in the domain but one cautiously tucked off from it , on the fringe of Kyoto . To reach the 1,300 - class - erstwhile temple evidence swathed in at least 120 kind of moss feels like tearing an opening into contemporary Japan . That modern context , a tangle of roofing tile - roof family winding up and down around the garden ’s elusive entering , trapped and confused us , until a sympathetic local resident physician parked her bicycle and showed us the way , as she ’d intelligibly done for other tourist . Just in time , we hit the logic gate with 40 or so others , all of whom , like us , had written ahead for permission to roam through four - and - a - half acres of plants that the Japanese revere .
Moss lines the depository financial institution of the pool at Saiho - ji . Photo by : Robert Essel NYC / Corbis .
Mosses — the shy , tad - loving greens that favor undisturbed spots like tree trunks and riverbank — flourish in misty climates and run to show up where they wish , not where gardener put them . An entire landscape of mosses requires coddling . From visitors , it demands exquisite care to particular — or at least a calm and open heart .
To infuse that almost reverent receptiveness , the monks at Saiho - ji have establish a rite that all visitant must participate in before touring the grounds . In a temple mansion filled with small , low wooden desks , we were asked to seat on the storey with pen and ink and trace the print characters of a sutra , or Buddhist Bible — a job that took well over an 60 minutes . While we worked like docile kid , the monks chanted , enfolding us in worshipful , transporting medicine . By the end of the session , everything seemed sharper , clearer — colors and sound , every green silhouette .
A mossy way winds through the garden at Renge - ji Temple . Photo by : Allan Mandell .
Having been so undercoat , we found it out of the question to rush through Saiho - ji , to overlook , with our sharpened eyes , the unnumberable edition on the theme of moss as we walk the path around a pond amid centuries - sometime genus Cryptomeria trees . The forms of rocks and trees rose muscular and self-asserting through the moss ’ gentleness , suggesting lifelike forces that grapple and geological fault , achieving temporary harmonies through eternities of clip . Being there , we feel time as an infinite nowadays . We stood in a live shrine , breathing the mystery story .
Moss is an chemical element in many Kyoto gardens , include those at the Okochi Sanso villa . Photo by : Allan Mandell .
One of the reasons we went to Kyoto was to delight in moss — unremarkably more of a moment player in landscape — as a cardinal feature article , the main event . In Japan , moss is regarded as an essential factor : a symbolization of harmony , old age , and tradition . For at least 1,000 years , Zen monk have celebrated its presence in save descriptions of temple landscape . During our sojourn , we learn how mod householder weave it into private courtyards and front gardens , among paving stones , along curbsides and fences , and as a tie slipstream between bonsai trees . Even in these tiny spaces , moss joins the disparate piece , knits rock to world , pull individual plants into unified piece .
A supporter of ours , Ken Kawai , who teach landscape computer architecture at Kyoto University of Art and Design , took us through several gardens in the urban center and explicate the appeal of moss . “ cover the open of the globe , moss strongly express the landform , ” he said . “ But at the same time , they are so fragile that you’re able to not abuse on them . This coexistence of ocular posture and forcible fragility is what makes moss so compelling to the human intellect . ”
Moss at Tofuku - ji Temple . Photo by : Lisa Romerein .
While nowhere as widespread as it is at Saiho - ji , moss rise in virtually all Kyoto ’s well - known landscapes , from small - scale tea leaf gardens to the sprawling grounds of imperial palaces . At Ryoan - ji , the most far-famed dry Zen garden , moss is the ground element , an island of fleeceable around many of the 15 iconic rocks inch in raked white gravel . At Koto - in , a sub - tabernacle of the larger Daitoku - ji complex in Kyoto , moss blankets a field beneath a timber of maples , create an absolutely unsubdivided , tranquil scene . At the Shugaku - in Imperial Villa garden , moss robe a pool ’s sloped bank , slow up and filtering the downhill stream of water , which becomes a mirror for surrounding trees .
Moss at Kinkaku - ji Temple ( Golden Pavilion ) . Photo by : Kristen Elsby / Esthet Photography / Getty Images .
Even in these long - established garden , it ’s hard to tell the planted mosses from the squatter . “ Mosses invited themselves into the gardens of Japan and thereby invented moss gardening , ” George Schenk wrote inMoss Gardening(Timber Press ; 1997 ) , his important book . This idea became vindicated to us as we walk through Saiho - ji , thinking about its unparalleled chronicle . In the 700s , a priest named Gyoki built a temple in these mountains west of Kyoto ’s centre of attention , and some 600 years later , the Zen priest and famous garden maker , Muso Soseki , conceived a landscape around the remnants of an early garden he had found on the site . His pattern — which preserved some component of the premature “ paradise garden , ” a version of heaven on Earth — reshape the original pond with its three iconic island into the form of the Formosan character for heart , which resembles an uncompleted trapezoid bone . The circumnavigate strolling course was his addition , as was the wry shower of rocks .
Mosses abound in Yakushima Island ’s ancient pelting woods . photograph by : Ippei Naoi / Getty Images .
Yet the garden ’s most celebrated expression , the legion of moss in different shades of commons that belt hummocks and hill and mound around the pond , almost surely rise on its own in the humid mood . Long after Soseki ’s time , in the viewing of wars , natural disasters , and neglect , the verdant carpet ( primarily from theLeucobryumandPolytrichumgenera ) germinate and distribute on these shady slopes , hint a billet much more natural than design . Which raises the question : Exactly what defines a garden if most of what look on its original map has changed or disappear ? Is its expressive military unit rout mostly in nature itself , or in the human imagination that persists and creates , despite the sure thing of change ?
Muso Soseki viewed the thoughtfulness of landscape as a route to enlightenment . As an component of the considered landscape painting , moss receive ego - forgetfulness . Its midget details suggest realms normally beyond our perception . At Saiho - ji , I could n’t help oneself but get down on my knees before it so I could really understand what I was seeing . There ’s so much more to it than what first appear : On the micro level , the soft moss rug breaks into infinite , intricate part — miniature tree shape that resemble the mighty evergreens that shelter them .
Groundskeepers remove junk from moss at Nara - koen Park , in Nara . photograph by : Lisa Romerein .
Just as it changes with point of view , moss also changes with the seasons , becoming , as Kawai told us , “ vital and bright in June , a preciously quiet time for the garden in Kyoto after the nationwide festal period of time of April and May , with their cherry blossoms and fresh leaves . ” By fall , the greens of moss blind among Japanese maples that flame red and amber , the tree leave a crude line to the mossy carpet .
Still , for us , having locomote to Japanduringcherry flush time of year , a sense of specific time seemed wanting at Saiho - ji . As we wandered the path , it did n’t feel like spring , or even morning or good afternoon . It was time suspended , a light breather hold , a break from believe and evaluating . variety in this deep green region is subtle , and the comfort of this place arises mostly from its airwave of benevolent survival . Saiho - ji has been here for ages ; it will be here many more , eclipse loud , contemporaneous life with its muffling mosses . For the instant , primed by our ritual waking up , we were just quick to welcome — and to be get by — this mild , unfolding world .
More moss info
Learn about the unlike types of moss and the basics of growing moss in ourMoss Guideas well as how to cultivate more moss withA Moss Milkshake .
