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Japanese Dry Gardens

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Posted by michaeldigsdirt (My Page) on
Sun, Jun 24, 07 at 21:22

I have been asked to construct a Japanese Dry Garden.

The existing yard is all grass approx 30 x 12

The Question I have is after getting rid of grass and adding my drains (basic Hardscaping)
I want to have a sea of sand which I will incorporate a path, Japanese lantern, several large rocks, a Japanese yew, Chinese fridge tree and a medium size bonsai tree. Should this sea of sand, I am think about using white masonry sand with is a very fine white sand, be laid on a bed of packed crushed granite.

I have found rakes from asiangardentools.com if anyone is interested in large rakes for Japanese gardens.

Thanks for you interest.

Michael

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RE: Japanese Dry Gardens

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Hi Micheal,
If you use large crushed granitt and put your fine sand on the top when you rake your sand it is going to go down through the larger chippings,also white sand is too bright and sand is too fine,I used 8/10 mm limestone chippings which are the ideal size for raking and are grey/white which is a more subdued colour,you can see my karasansui garden on the link below.
George.

Here is a link that might be useful: George's Japanese Garden

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RE: Japanese Dry Gardens

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Also, if you use sand or anything that fine (I once used black sandblasting grit for a small raked area) the neighborhood cats will use it for a litter box.

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RE: Japanese Dry Gardens

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Turkey grit (Tuff Shell) is limestone chips and the right size. I sprayed Liquid Fence to keep the cats away.

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RE: Japanese Dry Gardens

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The rakes Michael references are sold on my website. They were initially made for an Asian-style garden I designed and installed in my own back yard because I could not find a rake to purchase anywhere on the internet. They were originally designed for coarse beach sand because that medium holds patterns that large stone such as most crushed granite cannot. The rakes also work well with fine crushed dolomite or any medium no larger than kosher salt. They do not work well with fine sand because it doesn't hold the pattern well.

As for cats, I was at first very concerned that our neighborhood cats would use the garden as a litter box. During the five years this garden has been in existence, this has not been a problem. I can only speculate that this is due to the fact that the sand granules are very large and coarse.

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RE: Japanese Dry Gardens

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  • Posted by
    PETER ANDREWS
    (pgla@shaw.ca) on
    Thu, Feb 24, 11 at 21:36

I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF CREATING A KARASANSUI GARDEN.THE AREA IS APROX. 3500SQ.FT.WITH ABOUT 850 SQ.FT. OF CRUSHED GRAVEL.THE SURROUNDING "MOUNTAINS" RISE ABOVE THE GRAVEL AREA BY ABOUT 4/5 FEET.LARGE ROCKS 2 TO 3 TONS IN WEIGHT HAVE BEEN PLACED AS BOATS IN THE GRAVEL(WATER) AND ON THE RAISED AREAS(MOUNTAINS)QUESTION; WHAT IS THE RECOMMENDED GROUND COVER OVER THE MOUNTAIN AREAS BEFORE THE ADDITION OF JAPANESE MAPLES,GRASSES ECT.,TEMPS MODERATE 0-25 CENT.

  
 

 

 


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