October 2010 « Tsubo-en Zen-garden diary

Zhong Kui 钟馗, SHŌKI 鍾馗, the demon queller

Although this subject has little to do with our Japanese garden I think it is appropriate to place this article here. We both fell in love with the painting right from the beginning. We first saw this painting during our Grand China tour back in 1992, where we met the son of the artist Xi […]

Your own Japanese garden, part one

Architecture design outline garden plan of Ginkakuji, Silver Pavilion, in Kyoto

How to go about when you are caught by the beauty of a Japanese garden and you have decided that this is what you want ? Japanese gardens are a living work of art in which the plants and trees are ever changing with the seasons. As they grow and mature they are constantly […]

Hidden surface-edges

Edges, we have a lot of them in our garden. Most of them are surface-edges. In a number of earlier posts we showed the visible edges and the frequent maintenance that those require. Apart from visible edges we have plenty of surface edges that are situated out of sight, invisible to an average spectator […]

Birdlife and near-dead

In Birdlife in the garden I wrote about life and dead. This female blackbird was lucky. Although it flew against our living room window it eventually survived. It fell on its back on the wooden deck of the veranda after the bang. We heard the bang and where immediately alarmed. We soon found the […]

Momiage, removing dead needles from pine

The last maintenance attention we give the Pine in our garden (Pinus leucodermis, Abies procera, Pinus mugo, Pinus densiflora, etc.) in October/November is called momiage. This year the coloration, from green to brown, happened in just one or two weeks time, the first weeks in October. Momiage is about removal of old and dead […]

Pruning shears with broken spring: How to repair ?

This is a lightweight (not a cheap, also known as Rose-pruner) hand pruner or pruning shears used to cut twigs and thin branches. It has only one cutting-edge. Today the spring that pushes the blades open, broke in two parts. Although it was immediately obvious to me how I can repair this, and continue […]

Fertilizing the garden

A couple of times per year we use fertilizer in the garden. In this post I don’t go into detail to answer the many related questions such as: What kind of manure is available ? In what quantities should I spread it ? At what time of year should it be put onto the […]