Gardens
About my garden
I first learned to garden when I lived at Green Gulch Zen Center in California. Green Gulch is a working organic farm that grows vegetables and flowers for market. I learned about Biodynamic farming, watched gardeners plant seeds in rows of dark rich earth, walked by...
A view to the garden
It was always my dream to have a place to make tea for friends. It needed to be an empty room at least nine feet square. Our house didn't have space, but we did have a tiny patch of land in the back yard.
Paths
The key element of the Roji is the path that crosses boundaries and entrances and guides you to the tea house. Stone paths are traditional and the stones in the outer path are straight with a formal pattern, the stones in the inner path are scattered, yet purposeful....
Garden rooms
The Tea garden, or Roji is divided into two spaces: an outer garden and an inner garden connected by a series of stone paths. Gates and fences play an important role in dividing the two rooms to create the feeling of transition from one place to another. When...
Stones for my path
My mother, who is now 95 years old, lived in a renovated historic schoolhouse which was just sold. Before the sale I went over and hauled out car loads of lichen covered stones from the walls on her property. With them I built a cobble path to my backyard. These...
Arrange flowers as if they were growing wild in a field
The Tea Ceremony as we know it today was created in 16th century Japan by the Tea master Rikyu. The flowers in the tea room are placed according to his insight
Structure
This bench is designed by the English architect Edwin Lutyens who was a colleague of the famous garden designer Gertrude Jekyll. They created the English County Garden style in the late 1800"s. The bench fits well with my farm house from the same era and shows that...
