Japanese Stone Structure

Until now I have never been asked to specifically design a Japanese garden. After a discussion in which I made clear flowers were not really involved and the response was I don't want no stinkin' flowers that need deadheading, I thought well I can do this. It will be a new challenge for me. It may not be an authentic Japanese garden according to code, but I can get you there.



I should have taken a before picture of course. So imagine if you will the stone edging on both sides of the gravel/flagstone path being rigid straight lines. Imagine the flagstone being a solid flooring with much less gravel in between the stones.

Now imagine me fetching and moving rocks, flagstone and 53 bags of gravel over a four day period during the hottest and most humid spell of the summer.



The Japanese garden is now ready to plant. It needs one hose pot to join the other large pot that was requested it be incorporated into the garden. The big pot will need to be replanted with something other than annuals.



Until now I have also never been asked to build a fountain. The client sent me a link to step by step instructions for building a pondless fountain. I just built my own house and had never done that before. I can surely follow the directions and build a little fountain. So I dug a deep hole and made a pondless fountain.

My first thought for a Japanese fountain was a nice stone with a hole drilled through it and the water bubbling up through the stone. There was online looking and much discussion about the fountain. Around the corner other construction was in progress and the flagstone path that leads to the back had been pulled up and stacked randomly in a pile. The client saw that and said make me a fountain like this pile of flagstones. I think I like the look of that. Alrighty then. I can do that.



The top piece of flagstone and the smoother rounded stone on top need to have holes drilled through them. If you look back at the first picture you can see the pump hose on the back side of the fountain. The pump hose is being held temporarily in place on top with the much smaller cap stone. I also want to get the next size larger pump to crank up the water flow a bit more.

Building this fountain was pretty dern easy. Digging the hole was the hardest part. I may need one of these for the garden to be.



Now imagine some Japanese type shrubberies to go with the Weeping Blue Atlas Ceder that started the whole thing. I moved that too from the dead center of a straight arrow, rigidly formed bed against the house to a new home in my first Japanese garden.



Now I just need one Japanee Inspectormans to see if my first Japanese garden passes code.