Plants +
People Japan

A study of the symbiotic relationship between
humans and the gardens they tend to.

We are pleased to introduce a special edition of Plants + People conversations—each captured last autumn while traveling across Japan, and featuring a trio of individuals who uniquely embody the tenets of Japanese gardening in practice and philosophy.

Japan has always been a foundational touchstone for us, a kind of guiding light for how we consider every garden an exercise in sensorial balance + an ongoing act of deliberate care. The country’s traditional gardening philosophies holistically center the search for unity at both pragmatic and spiritual levels, honoring how nature can nourish us wholly in the literal and abstract. 

Our experiences with these specific Japanese gardeners each offer different interpretations of what it means to garden with awareness for what is now, what’s been before us, and what’s to come; to sense what we can’t fully understand; to find beauty in what’s never complete.