Garden maintenance in Chizan-so, Hayama
The season of fresh green has come here in Japan, I visited Chizan-so, which is owned and managed by the zen master and zazen specialist Issho Fujita. Please see more information about him in the following link;
Although it just takes one hour a half mins from my living place by car, the sight is completely different. When I am being my own place, there are lots of manmade stuff like houses and buildings and electric poles, and they seem not to harmonize with nature. However, this place is different. As you can see in the picture below, even the thatched roof is covered with plants.
Beautiful weather and beautiful place, I felt that it would be a perfect day for work. Shiono-san, who came to help my garden construction work last time was also joined.
Since zen master, Issho Fujita, he is interested in tea ceremony too, he made a tea house and garden next to the Zazen Dojo. I came to maintain this garden in the past, so I went to check the condition before conduct my work. This is the path for the tea garden.
The entrance part was appeared after going under the bamboo gate. The sunlight was shining through the leaves of trees, it created a sort of dance between the light and the leaves. I was glad to see something like this scene because it motivates me to work hard to make a more green place in the city and make the cityscape more beautiful. Especially if I talk about the garden or landscape design, aging is one of the most important parts to create a beautiful space, so I need to make more when I still young enough to maintain these places in the future.
While following the stepping stones, I encountered a tea house. It was surrounded by small trees and bushes, and I feel that I strayed into some of the isolated places even it was just separated by the bamboo and earthen wall.
A washbasin set in this tea garden was covered with moss. I could feel the relationship between humans and nature at this point.
After enjoying the garden walk, I went to my working place. As you can see in the picture below, several bamboos and trees were fallen because of the typhoon last year and made the scenery scattered. By the way, we call this bamboo “Moso Chiku” which means Moso bamboo, or Phyllostachys edulis. Just in case if you are not familiar with bamboo species, this is the information about it;
http://www.bamboobotanicals.ca/html/bamboo-species/phyllostachys-edulis-moso.html
While cutting down all the bamboo which was fallen, I also cut down several bamboos which I felt too much growing in the same place. This is a very important process to keep scenery beautiful.
I turned around to the path of Chizanso after finishing work this day, it seemed like leaves and stems of trees and bushes telling me that I should come back here again.
