Japanese Garden Design Paperback – February 21, 2017

This is the most serious and complete of the 10 books I own covering Japanese Gardens. Everything is carefully laid out and well written. The photos by Haruzo Ohashi, drawings (by the author), and design by John Einarsen are noteworthy by themselves, but as a whole blend and complement the text perfectly. It ends with an excellent glossary, timeline, and even a plant list. As his drawings clearly show, Marc Peter Keane is a man who looks deeply into nature and design and thinks about what he sees. As a keen gardener and lover of art history, I've visited about 20 gardens in Japan, and this book, more than any other, gives the reader a clear idea of what these gardens feel like, not only a dry description of who did what when and with what materials. This isn't a do it yourself manual for westerners who want to start dropping rocks and spreading gravel in their gardens. Deeper, more difficult questions are answered - like why do these gardens look like they do, and how have they changed over the years. If the gardens he designs are as good as this book, I'd love him to create a garden at Galeazza one day.

This beautifully illustrated book provides a great introduction to the historical styles of Japanese gardens. For those who are interested in planting a Japanese garden, there are three chapters on design which convey the essential elements of the gardens -- the book encourages us to consider the essence of the garden rather than copy the look of the garden. It was very helpful in designing my Japanese garden.

I bought a number of books on Japanese Gardens, because I like visiting them and wanted to make one of my own. I found this book to be more of a textbook than the rest; it is heavy on history and theory but is somewhat dull. If you want to be inspired, you probably don't want a book that uses endnotes. There is nothing wrong with it, but I found the Art of Japanese Gardens to be more balanced in terms of photos/inspiration and text. This is more thorough in terms of history and theory and less so with beautiful and varied photographs. In designing my own garden, I ultimately could have done without this book, though if you are fascinated by theory and history, it is probably the most comprehensive. If you're buying one book only to help inspire and educate, I'd go with the Art of Japanese Gardens.

I've been reading a lot about Japanese gardens, but I am certainly still very much an amateur and a newbie. That said I think this book was the most informative and the most helpful to date in terms of understanding what it is that appeals to me about the gardens in Japan. I could never hope to recreate such a place where I live, but I can begin to see how I might have similar appeal and sensations in my own garden. And in a very interesting and palatable way, I learned much about Japanese history that I probably would not have paid attention to in any other context. This is a book I am happy to own and I know I will reread it many times over the years to come, though of course there are opposing views and I will try to learn about those as well.

The book has many color pictures, plans and explanation how to create Japanese garden, stone pathway.

The book is a very in depth treatise on the effects of historical influences upon the Japanese garden design. It is not a how-to, but more of a why certain design elements came into being and became part of the Japanese cultural experience.

I ordered the book because I wanted pictures of Japanese gardens. There were not as many good pictures as I hoped there would be. The text - descriptions of the gardens - was very informative.

explains the elements of traditional Japanese gardens, which are full of history and symbolism, with beautiful photos