1) Unwanted view. Please look at this photo below
http://www.odla.nu/album/data/mrnorth/1431_p26445.jpg

Im standing on my deck and the view is of my neighbours scrappy garden... he has all kinds of things, old cars, lots wood, a rusty small supplyhouse etc etc.

Needless to say, I want it GONE!!! The red thing u can see on the far left is my garage. I have two solutions...

* Hedge... I can plant a thuja hedge. Rather expensive

* I can build a fence about 2 meters high. Rather expensive, I need building permit and it isn't so pretty.

Im thinking about the thuja since it is more attractive... BUT a fence in combination with the correct plants is also rather attractive. And I dont ahve to wait for the hedge to grow... How would a japanes gardener enhance this view?

2) The "main" view from the deck is of course the pond. But behind the pond there is only the forrest, and 4 meters of grass between the forrest and the pond. PLease look at this picture

http://www.odla.nu/album/data/mrnorth/1431_p26447.jpg

The rocks is the fall in the pond. And as u can see it is a rather boring background with only the forrest like a wall. I want somethign to soften up the background, perhaps 2-3 pines´of different sizes planted somewhere between the pond and the forrest? Any suggestions?

Thats all from me now ;) Cya

thanks
Henrik

This website includes hundreds - maybe thousands - of pictures of Japanese gardens. If you haven't seen it before, it may give you some ideas. Look down the columns headed 'Location' & look for anything with the word 'garden'. Herb
Click here

http://www.odla.nu/album/data/mrnorth/1431_p26480.jpg

and what do you think of the flowerbed in general?

kind regards
Henrik

If not consider either a neat hedge (is beech any good in Sweden?) or planting to create an informal effect that does the same job eg. a stand of bamboo, select trees.

*Just noticed you can't do much of the above. Look for friends with old conifers that they dislike. Offer to remove them for free. Carefully transplant and then prune back hard to create bonsai look ;-)

Photo2- In some Japanese gardens you will see perspective tricks played with forests like this. Smaller planting is put in front of the pines to trick the eye into see a bigger more dramatic forest farther away.

Another way of reforming the 'wall effect' is to put in a feature such as a teahouse. This should be in a good spot to review the rest of the garden from and be good-looking in it's own right.

Photo 3- The path doesn't really go anywhere so feels odd. The lantern isn't too bad and if well placed with plants should look right. Planting is a bit new but do remove the labels. I haven't ever seen a japanese garden photo with labels on the plants (sometimes boards to tell visitors things but not plant tags). I keep my tags in a notebook with a sketch plan.

Thank you for the great ideas!!

About the path... The idea was that the path would be leading up to the lantern... Paerhaps a bad idea...

And the labels... these plants are about 2 weeks old... And I always keep the labels on for about 1 season to memorize its names (im bad with names).

About the beech, yeah that is a very common tree in Sweden. But im not sure it will make a good screen. When it grow older the stem will become higher... and it will no longer screen the view ;)

I was thinking about planting decidious trees like pines, cornifers thuja etc... but when buying those they are small and very expensive.... and I have to wait for 10 years before reaching the size... and sadly most people I know threw away their big cornifers years ago (they built their houses in the 80's).

I will take one action to start with, go to my fathers forrest and find 3-5 smaller pines that I will plant in the lawn between the pond and forrest. That will create a great view I think!

And the rest I have to think about ;)

cya
Henrik