Indoor mini zen garden

[Sage Hermit]

Soil: Poor quality; pH unknown

Container: Height 9''/ Length16''x Width11''

Plants: Local Moss, Morning Glories, Clover (unknown), Vine Tomato,

Bugs: Ants,Slugs,Earth Worms, Centipedes, Stray wasp

Tools: Mist Bottle, Neem Oil, Scissors


The large heart or spade leaves are Morning Glories. The largest green stem behind the wasp belongs to a Vine Tomato. Beneath the old wood is local MN moss (click to enlarge).
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Can anybody identify these plants?

[Sage Hermit]

[The Helpful Gardener]

Well, some plain old groundsel and a few clumps of grass, but that slightly blue-green whorl of leaves is a spurge of some sort...

Neat that you are living with the ecosystem inside your ecosystem SH...

Me likey...



HG

[Sage Hermit]

Added some moss, 2 more plants, made a few well calculated cuts.

Rewired the Morning Glory vines around the Old Wood.



I've actualy gone back to Phase one 1. 2010 edit. the tomatoe is dead and its predecessors take up residence elsewhere. now I am growing clover to fix nitrogen and some more flowers I have no names for. : ) COubple wormies and slugs to feed. . . COuple spiders.

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'm just not sure how Zen this is, SH. I think it's a little more Taoist, maybe...

Not really bonsai either, but maybe kusamono? Perhaps a more rustic container would help...

http://www.bonsai-nbf.org/site/exh-spri ... amono.html

HG

[Sage Hermit]

How is that not zen?

[The Helpful Gardener]

The Zen garden usually refers to a more minimalist, austere style with perhaps fewer elements to it... The design concept of wabi/sabi is intrinsic in Zen thought, with an adherence to natural components. The plastic container is a direct juxtaposition to that kind of styling. I think that's my only real thought there...just a natural container like clay or stone or wood ; true wabi-sabi would want a flaw or defect in it.... a folded, fired sheet of raw clay would be perfect... the kusamono link offers some ideas, I think... the Taoist/Zen thing was really more of a joke (One sprang from the other, so they are REALLY similar; bad attempt at Eastern religious humor. My bad...)

The contents are very wabi, natural forms of nature that might be under appreciated, shown for their appreciation. I love that. The inclusion of the wasps was why I found it more Taoist; very accepting of Nature on its own terms... I still like it a lot, SH, just would like it better in a natural container...

HG

[Piet Patings]

Well, what is in a name. "Indoor mini zen garden"
To me this is more like an "Indoor mini biological garden". That may have been created in the spirit of Buddhists and even Zen. However being a Zen-garden requires a different approach.
Let me explain why.
The "Zen garden" also known as "Japanese rock gardens" and "Karesansui", dry landscape, garden is a formally defined (arche)type of Japanese garden (e.g. according to Tokyo Agricultural University).
The origin of the Zen-garden dates back to 13th to 15th C, Kamakura, and Muromachi era.

The Zen-garden representations an abstract natural landscape (or mindscape) using stone arrangements and plants that often represent stones and mountains. The gardens are based on three-dimensional monochrome ink-paintings, originally Chinese and later also Japanese, of which they often are a scaled projection.
In these gardens fauna has no place as such.

My two cents, Piet,

[Piet Patings]

Just to be sure, the closing line in my previous reply should read as:
"In these gardens living fauna has no place as such."
Symbolic use of fauna is seen often in Japanese gardens, including Zen-gardens.
Examples are the turtle and crane. Tortoise and crane (tsuru) both stand for longevity and happiness.
Bye,

[The Helpful Gardener]

I like your take on things Piet, especially the reference to Tsung monochromes, but I have to disagree on one point... While karesansui styling is generally synonomous with "Zen Gardening" in the western world, I feel there are other gardens one can think of as Zen that do not fit that particular tradition...

Take Saiho-ji. The garden's current form is generally attributed to Muso Soseki (a Zen priest) who redesigned an abandoned paradise garden into a temple complex. While maintaining much of the original design he left the moss which the garden is now famous for. I have always thought it an act of gardening by not gardening (as that much moss was considered a sign of garden neglect at the time). Even after the burning of the temple in the Sengoku-jidai, or great shogunate unrest of the 1400's, it was still considered a great garden, and is to this day... several Zen teaching parables are apparent in its design elements... another famous Muso garden, the Ryoan-ji, is said to tell the parable of Buddha feeding himself to starving tiger cubs...

Or the Abott's Garden at Daitoku-ji; again a plant filled garden, with obvious design elements interpreting Zen thought (and Tsung monochromes)...examples of the work of Zen priests are still available for viewing, and not all are karesansui style...the true dry landscape archtype for Japan would be the niwa, or cleared area spread with white gravel, which is really a Shinto tradition; indeed this seminal form was the first garden with religious context in Japan. So the use of "Zen" for karesansui (despite it's introduction by Zen priests) misses the deeper significance of this style for Japanese culture. One must consider that the word Zen is a religious one, with different connotations for different people, but I fear it has become more a brand in the west, rather than a reference to contempletive enlightenment. But maybe that's just me...

"Zennism, like Taoism is the worship of Relativity. One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites."

Okakura Kakuzo
The Book Of Tea

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, you must kill him."

Zen teaching koan

HG

[Piet Patings]

Scott, thanks for the addition.
I fully agree with what you write.
Reason for my short-cut is that I wanted to clarify the naming in relation to the content, using only few sentences. Most widely the classification "Zen-garden" is connected to the Japanese (dry) rock gardens hence my shortcut. I know about the modern interpretations (Kuck, Kuitert etc.) of Zen influence on the garden and the discussions around it.
In practice many gardens are part of a temple-complex where dry-gardens or a dry rock garden only form one of many gardens or compartments, often as those you describe (e.g. your example of Daitoku-ji).
Bye,

[The Helpful Gardener]

Hai, Pating-san

HG

[Sage Hermit]

Kiri zen ichi~
ame ga akai desu
Nabiru: mukyu

One with the mist
the rain is red
Nabil without grade

[The Helpful Gardener]

If I understand the question, Sage (and there is room for great error there), I do not speak Japanese, but hope to learn someday...

Is the haiku inspration for the red themed container? Or the tomato? Which came first? Chicken or egg?

Blacks and reds are a Chinese thing that made it to Japan for the Momoyama period but faded back out with the backlash ; a Zen inspired rustic, earth-based look inspired by Rikyu, who was especially fond of damaged quirky pieces. Sometimes Chinese pieces can be denoted as scholarly, and Zen did come from Taoist thinking, but now we are moving towards my original comment...remeber if we want the contents to keep center stage then the container cannot overpower them in size, mass, shape, or color, so a rustic, earth toned container will be quieter than any color, especially the inclusion of all colors (which is what black is; creates a very heavy mass). White is a funerary color in Asia and not appropriate, either. Look at good bonsai pots (Japanese one especially; despite the increased price they are the nicest); you will note the restrained color palette immediately...not so much in Chinese, Vietnamese and Malaysian stuff...

The water idea sounds lovely...

HG

[The Helpful Gardener]

But the Sakuteiki says a garden shows true harmony when water fowl reside there...

Zen is not a way of absolutes...

If you meet the Buddha on the road you must kill him...

You must excuse Kavi. He is "social media marketing" where people come in, parrot a post, leave it and come back to plug a link in later. Don't take it personally, Piet; we don't. But we will flush his posts like dog doo and ban his ISP when he does...

HG

[Sage Hermit]