hakone - gardens: tea garden

The Tea Garden path provides a soothing, tranquil journey over moss and stepping stones. Guests participate in a transforming realm of beauty and elegance as they purify their hands at the tsukubai, or water basin. Enclosed for privacy, this cool serene enclosure of delicate plant life prepares visitors to enter the tea ceremony rooms.

Tea ceremony rooms are traditionally entered through a garden connecting it with the enclosure built for guests waiting to have tea. The azumaya, or covered pavilion, located near the tea rooms is in an ideal position, and although it is not constructed in the traditional architectural style, it functions well for the convenience of guests awaiting the tea ceremony. It had in fact often been used for garden tea parties by Stine herself, and is an original structure which also serves as a covered seating area for casual visitors. The original garden of maple trees in a bent grass lawn was changed to accommodate its new use as a tea garden. The pathway meandering toward the pond was removed, and a stepping stone path, with a gateway, was installed linking the waiting area with the tea house. The path connecting the tea waiting azumaya to the pond garden was installed where bent grass turf had once been. Mondo grass was planted and replaced the high maintenance turf of putting green. A water basin arrangement was added, and later reworked by Shintaro Sawaragi. An Oribe lantern was donated by Tamiaki, a master gardener from Saratoga's sister city, Muko, Japan. A background planting including pieris japonica, tea, ferns, and other appropriate shrubs were planted to surround the water basin with green plants representing the forest from which the water of the bamboo fountain emerges into the water basin. A tea garden is separate and secluded from its surroundings.

The moss is now growing dense and green providing the ideal cover for a tea garden. Moss is the preferred groundcover in Kyoto where it flourishes in the wet and humid summer heat. California has the opposite summer climate characterized by drought, heat, and scorching sun, making it impossible to grow traditional moss. We have introduced ground covers of scotch moss, and baby tears, which after many years of care and weeding are now growing full and luxurious, giving the desired effect. Several maple trees were added to the beautiful specimens already there. The old weeping ash was left as it is, and the clipped azaleas, backed by a hedge of prunus lyonii under the red plum, are also original design elements retained in the new tea garden.

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