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Jackson Park's Osaka Japanese GardenThis page brought to you by Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference Parks Committee and HPKCC's website, www.hydepark.org, with and on behalf of the Jackson Park Advisory Council. Join HPKCC! Join JPAC! Contact the HPKCC Parks Committee Chair. Note, this site has no connection to bookings etc. |
Page
contents. Map
and how to get to the Garden. This site has no connection with permits,
reservations or special events- visit http://www.chicagoparkdisdtrict.com.
Jackson Park/JPAC home. Historic
Jackson Park. Doug Anderson's Lost
Wooded Island
Photo Gallery. Other
photo sources. Trish
Morse's Osaka Virtual Tour
New
waterfall (c. 12 foot drop) and waterfall-fed pools by moon bridge. Unfortunately,
the flow is since much reduced due to zebra mussel clogging. Inprovements were
made in 2008. Right as the moon bridge etc were in 2000. Photos by George Rumsey
Top
This
website has no association with hosting of any private or other special events
at the Garden, Wooded Island, or elsewhere in the Park, including the popular
63rd Bathing Pavilion. Call
Chicago Park District Park Services, 312 742-5369. The Garden in its location,
topography, set up, prohibition on traffic, and distant parking presents many
difficulties to large events.
This website is not that of the Chicago Park District, Sister Cities Program
of the City of Chicago, or City of Osaka Chicago Office or any chamber of commerce
or private organizationor foundation promoting Japanese Gardens or the well
being of Osaka Garden in Jackson Park, Chicago.
For a free tour, join Doug Anderson's Wooded Island Bird Tours, Wednesdays at 7 am, Saturdays at 8 am. Meet at the Darrow Bridge sout of MSI Columbia Basin. 773 493-7058. Call first as Mr. Anderson is unable to give the tours on a regular basis.
The Chicago Architecture Foundation have co-sponsored annual Osaka Garden Festivals, but not since 2000. The latter gives tours of the tours the World's Columbian Exposition footprint that includes Osaka Garden ($10 to nonmembers). Four times a year the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs gives similar tours by bus from the Chicago Cultural Center, 78. W. Randolph.
The Garden is maintained by the Chicago Park District, South Region (William Tillis at Jackson Park Fieldhouse, 6401 S. Stony Island, 60637), Clauss Brothers including direct landscaping (and subcontracted volunteer experts). Ernest Alverado trades and landscape 312 742-PLAY), the Park District Department of Natural Resources (and various other divisions. For security issues call the Chicago Police then Park District Police (ask for Ernest Griffin or Lorenzo Chew, Kevin Ryan districtwide director) and the fieldhouse and 911.
Access is completely open. But remember the Darrow and Wooded Island bridges are not be crossed by automobile, and Wooded Island is closed to private vehicular traffic.
In 2oo8 thanks to generous grants, the waterfall pump was replaced, the Torii Gate was repaired and cleaned, a felled bur oak replace, and cherry trees planted along with a rededication in October. The Regular cleaning will be necessary to maintain this pump, which also helps with Lagoon water quality.
A foundation or conservancy may well be established, likely to be called Friends of Osaka Garden. Get contacts via Gary at hpkcc@aol.com
News: Hyde Park's high-performing Murray Language Academy Principal Greg Mason has been selected to join two other Illinois principals to study 8 schools in Japan, in 5 prefectures/cities including Osaka, all expenses paid by the apanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Educational Exchange Program. Murray is celebrating the 30th year of its Japanese language program.
Visit Osaka Garden (www.osakagarden.org website, which is good and quite inclusive. although inactive). Other Osaka Garden sites: Museum of Science and Industry page with photos, (one) and (two) , by photographer and JPAC member David Solzman, City of Chicago/Department of Cultural Affairs/Sister Cities, (head Robert Karr). See that of the international Japanese Gardens organization. More fine pictures, including from the 2002 Festival, are in the website of Mary Rose Shaughnessy
Back to Jackson Park Home Page, Back to Jackson Park Hot Topics, To Lagoons and Restoration Project
To Osaka Garden Photo Gallery: Summer2002, Reconstruction Spring and Summer 2002. See more pics in the site of Mary Rose Shaughnessy, particularly those of the 2002 Osaka Garden Festival!
The Japanese Garden (known formally as "Osaka" only since 1995) started with scraping and building up and outward the natural oak savannah sandbar (then a peninsula), to be known henceforth as Wooded Island, for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and constructed on what was now become an Island (with a bridge connection) a Ho-o-den (Phoenix Temple--but it really wasn't, but rather a lake retreat or villa, befitting an island) for the government of Japan as its pavilion for the Exposition. It has been suggested that the "phoenix" emblem was a gesture to Chicago, which was resurrected like the mythical bird from the ashes of the Chicago Fire, an emblem adopted at the same time by the adjacent "reborn" University of Chicago. The Ho-o-en was located near (approximately the large lawn west of the modern garden), not in the present garden with tea house. 1893 The Tea House was located northeast, on the east side of the East Lagoon on the mainland. the living quarters for the builders, performers, craftsmen, representatives et al from Japan was located in the southwest corner of Wooded Island, amidst some of the oldest giant burr oaks in the Chicago area. That site was also a hunters' camp at some point.
Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was at first reluctant to accept the offer by the Japanese government to build a formal garden and temple with Ho-o-den (and a across-the-lagoon tea house) (all at its own expense) because he conceived the island as a rustic resting spot, a retreat from the bustle of the Fair. But the offer was too good for Fair architect/manager Daniel Burnham to resist. The pavilion and Ho-o-den) in fact blended harmoniously with nature in a way the rest of the Fair buildings clearly did not and was highly popular. This raises the fascinating and eternal interplay and see-saw between a park as "passive" (and natural and pristine" vs active and ever changing. (Jackson Park is in most respects a "made" and remade environment even if much, especially the lagoons and island took their hint from the way it was in the late 19th century and kept a great many of the old trees, especially oaks, while adding thousands that were of new species.)
The Japanese exhibit and pavilion also helped introduce Americans to Japanese culture, religion, arts, and architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright was but one of several architects and artists influenced by the Phoenix Pavilion, but the impact on him was arguably transformational (-leading not only to prairie houses but large structures such as the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, and influenced his decorative arts). It's not only the exterior look and visible structure (form following function), but the interconnecting corridors and holistic flow of the "rooms" that influenced Wright and others.
The 1893 Ho-o-Den (Phoenix "Temple") consisted of three structures joined by covered walkway to form the shape of the phoenix bird, which it did resemble from ground level). The beams and joinery were part of the beauty and ornament. Inside were artifacts and treasures from three periods of Japanese history-scrolls, vases, decorative screens, writing materials, and musical instruments. A major feature was the lanterns-- both the elaborate stone ones and the paper lanterns at ceiling level. The elements and art were designed and crafted in Japan and brought over by steamer and train, along with carpenters, stone workers and gardeners. The construction itself was an activity that drew many visitors. A reporter wrote, "They move about serenely as if it were a pleasure to work."
After the Fair, the Ho-o-den
Pavilion remained after most of the rest of the Fair was torn down or burned,
and Olmsted, and then his sons redesigned the island, lagoons, and park. Today,
one special lantern, placed now south of the current tea house, is probably
the only original furnishing that remains--although some say this was made later
as a replacement.
Rebirth: In 1933/4, Chicago, with help from the government of Japan, constructed a traditional Nippon Tea House at the Century of Progress World's Fair on Chicago's near /mid-south lakefront and also created a garden on Wooded Island's northeast side and refurbished the Ho-o-den in a renovated north end of the Island. The actual site extended across what is now the lawn that forms a road loop west of the present garden. More Nippon Tea House material was brought to the site after Century of Progress closed. These were done to show appreciation for this special place and Chicago's gratitude to Japan 40 years after the previous fair. The Torii Gate, the Nippon Tea House, and lanterns from the Century of Progress was moved in 1935 to Wooded Island, near the Ho-o-den, and a traditional Japanese Garden was designed by George Shimoda and built thanks again to Japan. The garden on Wooded Island consisted as today of a double-pond with islands, a cascading waterfall, stone walkway, flowering cherry trees, iris, lily pads, a moon bridge, carp pools, inlaid step stone paths, rock formations, and beautifully carved stone lanterns.(Note that the shore was considerably changed and shortened by the WPA projects of the 1930s.)
The structures burned or were burned progressively starting right after start of the war between the U.S. and Japan and culminating in a major conflagration started some say by two boys in 1946. Gradually, the site and Wooded Island became neglected and unsafe, even an attractant for unsavory elements and muggers, later gangs. Yet, in its unkempt state it helped make Wooded Island one of the glories of the Lake Michigan Migratory Bird Flyway--the Island becoming far more densely vegetated than it had been even in the late 1930s (judging from areal photos), and in 1977 it became part of the Paul H. Douglas Nature Sanctuary--see the plaque inset in an ancient (granitic rhyolite?) rock by the main gate. Catbirds, robins, cardinals, red-wing blackbirds, and yellow warblers make it home.
A second rebirth was sparked by two events in 1973. Chicago officialized a Sister City/Partner relationship with the city of Osaka, Japan. (The relationship really went back to 1956 ad 1958-when the City of Osaka Chicago Office was established, partnered with the Japan External Trade Organization.) One of the goals of the Sister Cities program became to revive the Japanese Garden in Jackson Park. Also, a photo exhibit of Japanese urban transit systems was held at McCormick Place.
In that year also, then 5th Ward Alderman Leon Despres persuaded his friend Douglas C. Anderson to begin his now renowned bird walks on the Island and other surrounding natural area in Jackson Park, in part to reclaim them for birders and the communities of Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and South Shore. Gradually, thanks in good measure to Doug and to picnics/People in the Park events held by the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and Open Lands, citizens and birders returned, rediscovered Osaka Garden, and demanded its restoration. Also, by 1974, Jackson Park had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. During that decade, the Park Distinct added new landscaping, stabilized the shoreline and either restored or reconstructed most of the original features.
In 1977, Anderson persuaded officials to name the whole Island after his mentor, environmental and parks advocate (Indiana Dunes) Senator Paul H. Douglas, whose ashes Anderson scattered at the base of a Southern Catalpa, then surrounded by flowers. Efforts to restore the garden and a rebuild a simplified tea house reached fruition, starting with reopening in 1981, and 1983, (third rebirth) when the Garden restoration was completed and the garden rededicated. Featured were flowering trees, evergreens, shrubs and flowers. Other features included a pavilion, new moon bridge, rock waterfall, two granite symbolic boat docks, lanterns, landscaping. George Cooley, formerly a JPAC officer and Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference officer, shepherded planning and secured grants including federal funds for the Garden restoration. Japanese experts were brought in, including designer Kaneji Domoto. Many area groups and individuals have since tended the special palette of plants and trees, including rare pines, 4 red maples, and many plants including Jewelweed and Quince in the propitious color red.
In 1985, Mayor Washington led Chicago delegation to Chicago and year Chicago and Osaka held as cultural exchange focusing on jazz. In 1988 Osaka Deputy Mayor Ota visited chicago and in 1990 Chicago exhibited a garden at the Osaka EXPO '90. In 1991, Lincoln Park Zoo presented Osaka's Tennoji Zoo with as Lion-tiled Macaque.
Fourth rebirth. The next phase was marked in 1993 with celebration of the Partner City 20th Anniversary, including Chicago Days in Osaka and painting of a mural for the International Terminal at O'hare by painter Hideo Nakai. Additional important dates for evolution and growth of the garden complex (initiated in 1991 with $100,000 in landscaping and preliminary shore protection--although the latter was insufficient to last) were 1992(-3), when the 20th anniversary of the Sister City relationship was celebrated and the Garden renamed Osaka Japanese Garden (1993), and 1994-5, when such additions as a new Torii traditional formal gate (Kobayashi & Associates of Seattle- but see box below) and fence, were dedicated, funded by the City of Osaka at $250,000, part of a total $400,000 gift, and constructed entirely without nails and by hand using tongue and groove methods. A major historical study and report were produced in 1992.
Gate dedication and renaming of the Garden for Osaka, was in 1995, attended by Deputy Mayor Sakaki, and was marked inter alia by a $9,3000 donation from Chicago toward Hanshin Earthquake Relief. Changes to the garden included new trees and plants, berming to reinforce the inner and outer pool concepts. The garden gradually became an international mecca, despite poor directional signage to it. It is a prime site for viewing local and migratory birds. It also presents an interesting set of microclimates and habitats as well as a contrast to the more rustic habitats of the rest of the Island. The garden did suffer from shore erosion, weak pool circulation due to the waterfall being too small, beaver damage at the end of the century, and frequent vandalism and abuse. Fortunately, the Tea House was built of naturally fire-resistant Douglas pine and its graffiti painted over quickly.
| I wanted
to also add that the gate was actually built by John Okumura's company,
at that time it was Custom Cabinet Corporation. It was interesting to go
to the site before it was built and to see the construction of it. My dad's
company was always in Chicago, so the gate was actually made in Chicago.
He worked with Kobayashi-san on this project.
Mary (Okumura?) |
In 1997, Mayor Isomura and members of the Osaka City Council visited Chicago and gave cherry trees to the Chicago Park District. In 1998, the 25th anniversary of the sister city partnership is celebrated by a "Kyogen" performance and festival in the Osaka Garden. In 1999 Osaka participated in the Chicago Marathon including with flags, costumes, taiko drums. In 2000, the Osaka Garden Festival is repeated. In 2001 the City of Osaka participates in :"Tribute to Ethnic Museum" at the Thompson Center. Joint celebrations have continued since.
Fifth rebirth. In 2002 the garden was redesigned and reconstructed, with a master plan (only one-third realized at that time). It was hoped the new design would be more resistant to the above-mentioned problems caused in part by only partial execution of designs. Lost and not yet fully restored is the great variety of flowers and perennials, and the external shoreline continues to present problems. Also, it is hard to keep up the pump for the waterfall and that which maintains stable lagoon levels. And, yu can no longer elect to hop from stump to stump on the way to the moon bridge in hope of losing your demons. But the critical turtle island looks like one and the moon bridge is not only wonderful, it lines up for great photo ops. Most conclude the garden is lovely even when pruning and other care lag. See Principles of a Japanese Hill Garden, below. More on restoration below.
In 2008, after a hiatus in reestablishing a maintenance contract, and some less than satisfactory catch up pruning, parties including the City of Osaka Chicago Office, now contractors Clauss Bros., expert pruning supervisor Bill Koons, CPD supervisor Karen Szyka and Dept. of Planning and Development took action. Main improvements included repair and cleaning of the Torii gate, numerous cherries (actually sprouts grown in this country as the Japanese can no longer be brought into this country), replacement of a burr oak blown down in a storm, and most important replacement of the waterfall pump.
Rededication on October 18, 2008 (35th anniversary of the Sister City partnership) included dedication by the Vice Mayor and performances of a traditional "sit down" comedy--Kaishi and two "Rakugo"
Everyone is aware that some shoring up will still be needed, and such gardens need permanent funding to make the intensive maintenance sustainable-- and high level of security. Any permanent oversight group will have to look at which garden template is to be the goal, bearing in mind that a Japanese garden is meant to be changing and evanescent through the seasons and years-- a never-ending work of art.
The Garden's theme, from 1893 to the present, is peace--between humans and nature, within people, with the spiritual realm, and between peoples. These themes are dear to the people of Osaka, Chicago, and the park's neighboring communities. Long may this garden continue. As the Osaka Garden Committee of Sister Cities International wrote, "A garden develops over time....it is lasting. The same is true of the relationships between people, nations and cultures. Every gardener knows that quiet observation and attention to nature facilitate the success of a garden. Likewise, peace and understanding facilitate our future."
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Osaka Garden Festival (none currently- last planned was cancelled due to 9/11 in 2001. Was under the Chicago Sister Cities program.)In the late 1990's, an annual Osaka Garden Festival was organized by Robert Karr and associates, City of Osaka Chicago Office, and other many associates from several organizations, including Japanese-American arts, cultural, religious, restaurateur, and martial arts groups, the then City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs/Sister , Int'l, Chicago Park District, and (once) Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio with the Chicago Architecture Foundation and more recently commercial sponsors as well. The arts, music, ceremonial and martial arts performances, and food were spectacular. It was held the second weekend of September. Photo courtesy of Mary Rose Shaughnessy 2000. Visit her Osaka Garden page at her website. |
The principle and components of a Japanese hillside strolling garden (kyuushiki) is that you should not have a view of the whole from any one perspective but be refreshed and have your senses stimulated as you come around each twisting, looping turn and move past masking plants and trees. A garden is expected to change through the seasons and years and be evanescent. Important features include a turtle island in the pool, a moon bridge and walk over water, lanterns and statuary, and a waterfall. It brings together the components of nature: rock, water, hill/mountain, plant. Man-made elements are also included, usually cut-stone lanterns, a water basin, moon bridge and pavilion with Iromaya style roof--but man's domination is the opposite of what is intended. It establishes harmony through shakkei (borrowed scenery), in which views of neighboring trees and distant vistas are incorporated into the garden scene and experience. In fact, it is compressed landscape. All, including the plants, have symbolic references and spiritual effects. For example, by our taking a curved or zigzag path over water, the evil spirits that wear us down to fall away into the water, because they are said to travel only in straight lines; in addition, you are reminded to be ever agile and observant in life.
The design was skillfully carried out by experts highly knowledgeable of such associations and effects. This type of garden emerged during the Edo Period between 1615 and 1867.
Unfortunately, vandalism sometimes plague the Garden, to the point that fencing the whole Island was considered in the late 1990's. The sheet shoring along the shore of the interior pool and the East Lagoon was insufficient to guard against lagoon level fluctuations. The waterfall size and pump were not sufficient to keep the water fresh. Shore plantings were not kept up. Stopgap restorations ensued, including that of 1995. Some of the pines suffered infections.
The gate of the garden (ours in 1995- see above) proclaims the size and status of the garden--this one would be on the large, grand end of the spectrum.
The pavilion, simplified as it is, is both a classic Noh theater stage and an arbor for meditation, contemplation, rest, and observation--or a tea ceremony.
Stone water basin or laver, south of the pavilion, is for physical and spiritual/symbolic cleansing. The tsuku-bai is the kind positioned low on the ground along the path of stepping stones to a tea house and reflects the larger basin in front of a temple or shrine.
Turtle Island is the isle of happiness. Humans cannot, must not even try to, walk on it. It cannot but be viewed from afar, like the isle of immortals off the coast of China.
Moon Bridge. Bridges in Japanese gardens are supposed to be made only of natural materials (so imagine). It's not an accident that a link between this world and paradise is of natural materials. The high arch shows how difficult passage to the other world is--but there is a path nonetheless... Metal ornaments on rails of such bridges are called gyoboshi, "sacred gems."
Rocks and boulders are the bones of the earth. (See below on just how old our "bones" are, a refinement modern geological science and historical geography of the Midwest have allowed.) The rocks and stones are always chosen and placed first in planning and building the garden. Their placement is as critical as the path, contour and plants in determining the desired views. Stones are traditionally chosen for texture, color, and form and are given names--philosophical, religious, or poetic as inspired by the particular shape.
Kasuga Lantern from the 1893 World's Fair located north-northeast of the pavilion near the south gate. With pagoda-shaped top, it took its name from the Kasuga Shrine in Nara, Japan. Note the stag or deer panel. These lanterns are unique in taking one of four traditional symbols-- stag, doe, sun, or moon based on temple-compound offerings.
Re-designer Sadafumiu Uchiyama and previous designers placed rocks in the garden that have special meanings in a Japanese Garden, but also reflect the geologic ages of rocks in or brought by man or glacier to Chicago. Outside the Garden is a large stone with an identifying plaque. The stone is a glacial erratic, brought down by a glacier in a Pleistocene epoch ice age from Canada, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or the Green Bay area. It is of rhyolite, a granite-like but extruded igneous rock (quartz-rich- 10%+, felsic, usually light-colored and fine-grained) from the time of joining of the Midwest to the Canadian Shield craton, 1.8-2.1 billion years ago. One approaches the garden on a gravel path lined with igneous-granite curb-blocks, then crosses a threshold (under the Torii gate) of Silurian Age dolostone c. 420 million years old, from a time when a vast coral reef formed in a shallow tropical sea and Chicago was maybe where Brazil is now.
One continues through the Garden on paths of mixed gravel and purple-red "wasted granite" weathered out of bedrock at Wisconsin quarries. The path is curbed with blocks of quartzite, anciently metamorphosed from sandstone under great pressure until the grains fused--if this from the Bariboo Wisconsin area then the quartzite formed 2 billion years ago, when our part of the continent plowed into and joined onto the Canadian craton.
At the Moon Bridge and lower pond are large, irregular blocks, moonstones, were placed. They are composed of gneiss, formed in the Morton, Minnesota area in a metamorphic event 3.6 billion years ago. The parent formation is the oldest rock at surface in what is now the United States and is the oldest rock in the park. To the left is a glacial erratic that has an inclusion: another kind of rock fell into the cooling melt and was altered but not consumed.
Further on is a greenstone (metamorphosed basalt) boulder from a volcanic event 2.6 billion years ago.
The wonderful stone lanterns are of Barre, Vermont granite, a popular stone throughout the States. The stone is a fine gray with flecks of black, pink, and glittering mica. This stone formed during continental collisions and separations of the past few hundred million years.
2002 Restoration in conjunction with the Lagoon Restoration Project
It was recognized that at least shore stabilization and replanting should be undertaken as part of the ambitious lagoon restoration and Wooded Island restoration projects that started about 1999. Other funds suddenly became available in early 2002, including from Japan. However, the migratory bird season arrived before a great Japanese Garden expert and designer of Japanese gardens worldwide, Sadafumiu Uchiyama, could come from Oregon and personally oversee the engineering and craftsmen's work. Overseeing and planning was Park District expert Dan Purcharello. By that time, it was understood that a complete rebuilding of the lower reaches of the Garden was necessary, and both this and the specialist work took much more time than expected, barring the Garden to birders and viewers and users of the Garden. Yet, funds were not sufficient to do all the work thought desirable.
The sudden onset of this project with minimal communication to JPAC or Doug Anderson and other tour leaders caused great inconvenience, for which the Park District and project managers graciously apologized. In fact, lack of information on site may have encouraged several late-night break-ins and vandalism which occurred. The garden was reopened by the second week in August. At the August 12 JPAC meeting, members proclaimed the results to be most beautiful. It is hoped that the new protections to the shore, new waterfall and pool, and newly stabilized lagoon levels should prevent previous recurrent problems.
The project included draining and lining the interior pool, giving it sheet steel edge protection, enlarging and repositioning the waterfall, new access to the moon bridge, and new lagoon shore planting at the newly stabilized lagoon water level. The new waterfall has five times the volume of the former and now adds the sonic effect which is part of a traditional garden. There was little change in the main garden vegetation template. Overseeing much of the work were noted Japanese bonsai experts led by Mr. Uchiyama, then with the Portland, Oregon Japanese Garden and formerly the Anderson Garden in Rockford. The contractor was Clauss Brothers, which has remained under contract for upkeep.
Thought must be taken before there are further upgrades, including new planting. Special irises in the mudflat end of the pool have been installed. There will be more "partnership opportunities."
View our pictures of before and after. Another good site is that of JPAC member David Solzman, parked in the site of Museum of Science and Industry website, including a picture gallery. See more pics in the site of JPAC and HPKCC member Mary Rose Shaughnessy. The City of Chicago's site (look for Sister Cities) and the Japanese Gardens organization have additional material.
Note- the site known as "www.OsakaGarden.org" is a Japanese and other gardening business and reference site and has no connection with Garden in Jackson Park.
Anderson Gardens in Rockford, Illinois (well worth the trip!)
Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois north of Chicago
Japanese Gardens at Holy Mountain Trading, San Francisco, California
Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon (Mr. Uchiyama's locale and probably the best Japanese garden outside Japan.) (this outstanding website may have to be navigated, it is rather complex)
Morikama Museum and Japanese Gardens, Del Ray Florida (site needs navigation)
Seiwa-en, St. Louis, Missouri.
Sujir Japanese Garden in Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York (site may need navigation)
There is also a Japanese
garden in northern Indiana.
See also the Roth Journal of Japanese Gardening. Note, if you want to start even a miniature one, note that a Japanese garden is among the world's most labor and material intensive gardens in the world.
There also seem to be many who have studied the matter long and seriously including in Japan, set up Japanese Gardens and landscape businesses featuring such gardens. This site cannot be a clearinghouse or provide promotion for such businesses, but we can give a few examples that have contacted us.
Treeline Studio: http://www.treeline-studio.com. JP van Herik studied long in Japan and recently has set up business in Chicagoland. One of his projects in Kyoto, Japan is well-known Kyoen: http://www.kyouen.jp/english/index.html.
