However, trimming and shaping are essential to the beauty and “verismo” of a Japanese garden. After all, how many “plane trees” have you ever seen that have flat tops and bottoms, not round? In the fullness of time with care, shrubs take on the roles they have been assigned, trees continue to appear as if they belong there, and the garden seems to have been there forever. That is immensely satisfying.

My Japanese Garden has several water features. There is the first-dug pond, with “mountains” on opposite sides, which I named the Shawan Pond for the assistant who spaded it out. There are also the Landon and Jeffrey Ponds, named after my two sons. One pond is a few inches higher than the other and spills over a low stone ridge. A connecting stream, Leahey Stream named after a lovely former neighbor, connects the boys’ ponds to Shawan Pond and then flows down alongside one of the mountains and in under the Blue Rug Juniper hedge along the driveway.

All the water features, like the use of gravel in Japan, have blue slate chips rather than actual water. It’s simpler that way, and it’s all symbolism anyway.

The Katsura Monastery Garden has two other features that I am proud of. One is a sand and stone garden laid out precisely at 3’ x 15’ by a neighbor. It’s called Isles in the Sea, a miniature of the famous Ryoan-ji garden. It is intended to represent three groups of islands in a tranquil sea. Leaves like it, and cats like it. The “mountain” nearby is named Dube-yama, after the neighbor who laid it out.