A Japanese Dry Garden in Quebec

Happy Monday GPODers!

We’ve seen several of the incredible Japanese-style gardens Bas Suharto has created in Canada (Building a Japanese-Inspired Garden, A Japanese-Style Courtyard Garden, and Building a Garden With Bas), and today we get to see another serene design. As an added bonus, he’s included the different mock-ups he created through the design process.

I want to share the back garden of my friend, Stefan. Recently he sent me photos, he added a rock in front of a ‘Beni-kaze’ hakone (Hakonechloa macra ‘Beni-kaze’, Zones 5–9). Also another photo where he added a taller rock on the middle of the “island”.

The beginning of his garden. I visited Stefan in Mont-Bleu, Quebec before the COVID-19 pandemic. We discussed his back garden, which had an existing lawn, plants and trees. Here is the photo of his back yard before winter in December 2020.

Stefan wanted less lawn and more organized or grouped plants to have easier maintenance. I proposed the preliminary design with a sketch. There are some existing trees like burgundy smoke trees and fruit trees. We discussed the preliminary design with this sketch and he liked the idea.

I finalized the sketch into a 3D drawing for showing the ideal look. Stefan liked very much the idea of a Japanese garden with a “peninsula” and an “island,” and dry lake look called karesansui. (For more information on the history of Japanese dry gardens, check out this awesome article from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

The final garden plan with the plant list.

Summer 2021, We cut, trimmed, pruned and removed existing shrubs and trees. We buried all branches and leaves to create “a hill” and “an island”, and covered them with the underside of removed lawn/grass. The planting area was added with marine compost mixed with top soil. I only worked with Stefan over several days. Above is a photo of work in progress of building the garden. I installed geotextile under 3/8” river wash stones and stepping stones (flag stones).

Stefan continues working by himself planting the plants based on the design. He planted the green ground cover, creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum, Zones 4–8) on the “island and peninsula”.

Last summer I visited Stefan’s garden to review; pruning or fixing certain plants, repositioning the rocks. Early autumn 2024 I visited his garden again, below are the photos.

The ground cover, thyme growing well, on the far right has Golden Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’, Zones 5–9).

Grouped ‘Purple Passion’ hostas (Hosta ‘Purple Passion’, Zones 4–8) and thyme ground cover.

Result of last summer (2024) “niwaki” trimming the Japanese laceleaf maple to have in a tree like shape.

Another photo of his garden, the area we added with raked gravels and rock arrangements (do you see a zigzag rocks like moving?)

Thank you for sharing another lush and inspired design, Bas! I’m always envious of your friends and neighbors that get to utilize your incredible eye.

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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