Stone in the Garden

[The Helpful Gardener]

I have lived in New England most of my life and rock is a big part of our gardening experience. Why haven't we adapted our gardens to feature it instead of piling it out of the way?

In Japan, stone is the first feature in the garden and everything else is added after. Makes sense for rocky areas, neh?

How do you use the stone you find in the garden?

Scott

[Herb2]

About 20 years ago a Bobcat was brought in to excavate a foundation for enlarging our house & it unearthed a great many rocks.

They were mostly nonedescript and none was big, so most ended up being used to augment the barrier of cedar bark mulch dividing the shrub beds from the lawn and from the paths. Some of the bigger ones were used for the tsukubai.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Herb, glad to see you here...

Thanks for contributing; spread the word...

Scott

[rckym21]

Hello. Rick here of lower NY. I sometimes type in the Gardenweb's Japanese Garden Forum.

Not sure how this works so this entry is just a test. The preview submit thingy : ) ok see how it works .

[rckym21]

Hello Scott and Herb.

Herb ,

The images from link above you provided. One particular image :Tsukubai Birdbath 2JPG


At the base of the lantern. Second stone to the left.

This stone has a flat plane across majority of the top surface. Towards the back the flat plain rises to the of mountians . There are two clumps of moss growing on respecetive left and right side of the mountian slopes. The imagination can percieve this as soils the sloughed down the sloped giving foothold for dense forests . The space between the mosses appears as the perilous steeper slopes rather void of growth.

Minimalism and art. Power of Suggestion.

Keiseki Hirotsu was a stone collector of Japanese style of stone viewing called Suiseki. Some of his stones can be seen on this website : http://www.felixrivera-suiseki.com/keisekiHirotsu.html

If I typed that link wrong..I didnt use copy paste. Look up website - Felix Rivera Suiseki. Scroll down to the bottom right hand of his suiseki website to Suiseki Artists.

The artisan Keiseki Hirotsu:
-The 5th stone down on left margin is black .
-The 3rd stone down on right margin is green.

Indirectly both share similar way to percieve one of you're Tsukabai Birdbath edging stones. Flat plains arising to the of mountians .

In my words this expresses the path to fine art and immagination. This is very relaxing in my mind.

The reason for mentioning this particular stone was in response to Scotts ideas on how stones are appreciated . I think this particular stone is good beggining to this thread. Not a very small stone such as a pebble that fits upon the palm of ones hand. Not a boulder that requires a dolly or machine to move.

I think the problem with stone viewing is I lacked the words to SEE . Suiseki is one such word. In conclusion many Americans I would presume simply need to cultivate new words into thier vocabulary barrowed from other cultures to accelerate how one see's random rocks.

[Student of Nature]

We moved from CT to VT two years ago to a compact home with a small yard in the forest on the side of a mountain. We thought we knew about New England rocks! Digging around here is like having your own gravel pit. This summer my husband dug a small pond so we could enjoy the sound of water falling over rocks. We search the woods for big flat stones for the waterfall, using all the smaller rocks he unearthed to line the pond. We have also used many to create some Zen-style landscaped areas around the house -- with statuary. It feel like the right thing to do here.