HelpfulGardener.com

I am new to gardening, and trying to create a Japanese style garden. I would love to plant some tulips, as they are one of my favorites, but I have not seen any in pictures, or blogs that I have read.
I am not a purist, and have read that creating a garden that is meaningful to oneself, may trump "rules".
Any thoughts or comments on this?
Thank you,
Cheryl

Hi
I am a Japanese, professional japanese gardener,use to live miamai, Atlanta, Salem,mass. now live west corner of Tokyo.
I do know and understand many of you(American,Cannadian) think

Genral speeking, tulip is not good choice for J garden in many reason.
Many trees,shurbs,plants in J gardenare tested and and have practical
reasons.
yama

yama is the expert and I am not. But as a professional Japanese garden designer, he may be a little more of a purist than you and I.

I'm with you. If you don't want necessarily a Japanese garden per se, but a Japanese influenced garden with some of the style and serenity of Japanese gardens, then I think you can follow your own taste.

Here's a list of plants for Japanese gardens:

https://www.nurseriesonline.us/articles/Japanese-Garden-Plants.html

that shows a red Japanese clivia, which doesn't look all that different from a tulip.

But you would want to use them carefully. Japanese style gardens tend to be spare and not over planted and more with foliage than flowers. So a few red tulips against some foliage could fit with the style, masses of them probably not. Leave spaces, use plenty of rocks (red tulips against rock could be beautiful).

A traditional element in Japanese gardens is a red bridge:

https://photodune.net/item/red-bridge-in-a-japanese-garden/507490

Your red tulips could function the same way as that pop of color in an otherwise simple and green garden.

Be sure you put a water feature in there somewhere!

Thank you Yama, and Rainbow Gardener for your replies. I will have to do some more thinking.....
I do plan to add a stone creek bed next spring. There is a swale that runs across my yard for spring drainage. The area remains wet into the summer. I would like to try to work with it, instead of fighting it.
I am in a townhouse, so my neighbors are very close. I would like to add a water feature to help block out noise.
...... So many ideas, and not much space. I know that I need to choose carefully.
Thanks again,
Cheryl

If you don't have privacy fence, think about doing bamboo fencing. It is very cheap and easy to do and lends itself well to Japanese garden style:

https://bamboofencestore.com/splitbamboofencing72x156.aspx

Even if you have a fence, if it is not conducive to the style (wire fence or brick) you can just lay a role of bamboo fence over it.

I couldn't find a real good picture of what I have in mind, but this will give you a little sense of how pretty foliage can look with natural bamboo as a backdrop:

https://www.home-decore.com/take-advantages-of-bamboo-fence-panels/

Hi
Many plants in J garden are not only ornamental tree, shurb, plan.Many of them are medicinal plants. Japanese Buddhist monks brought many plants to Japan from China. Chinese monk are also expert of medicinal plants.
When tree and plant shurb to select, trees and shurb must take hard pruning to maintain size of garden and tree size ratio. hard pruning will help to reduce pest problem.

Reason why Japanese garden look so clean is thst many Buddhism sutras say keep clean, neat,and solemn temple and dojo.
This is reason why japanese garden ground are not cover with mulch.

Japanese garden design are well culculated human mind. I can say" eye illusion and mind illusion.
Color, horizonal line. blance to your eye.not balance of physics.
Once you learn basic design concept, rest of work is peice of cake

yama