Gardeners Tips

Garden terms with  Japanese Roots

There are many interesting terms that may have uses in our UK gardening.
We  have probably all experimented with Bonsai aiming for the perfection of small trees in small pots as a demonstration of bonsiers art. I have used the root restriction technique to get miniature or smaller shrubs for a smaller garden but stopping short of root pruning.

• Yohaku is the use of empty space found in art forms such as garden design especially dry gardens.Such space is common in other art forms like flower arranging as well as Japanese and Chinese painting and calligraphy,
• Two words are used by the Japanese to indicate Japanese maple species and cultivars, and these words reveal something of the reverence they evoke: Momiji (usually refers to maples which have leaves with deeply separated lobes) and Kaede (usually refers to most other maples).
• “Kaede” stems from the ancient language term “Kaerude” – (Kaeru = frog, de = hand). The lobed leaves of maples brought to mind the webbed hand of a frog. As the centuries passed, this was shortened to “Kaede.”
• “Momiji” may literally be translated ‘baby’s hand”, but it is not correct in this case to apply the meaning directly. Instead, one may apply it as “Little baby extends his tiny hands which are like the leaves of momiji (maple).”meaning “becomes crimson leaves.
• Practiced in Japan for centuries, the art of tea ceremony –also called Chado, or The Way of Tea– is imbued with harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. 16th-century master Sen no Rikyu refined Chado, and the Wabi-Sabi aesthetic of simplicity with a yin/yang balance.
• Feng shui  harnesses the invisible energy or chi dragons breath –
• Tong Shju the thousand year calendar takes a the longer term view try that in your garden
• Shar chi is a term that implies ‘the killing breath of straight lines’
• Japanese topography enhances natural good features and seeks to diffuse bad

Garden terms from Art and Design

• Perspective both aerial and linear are practiced in art that cam be studied in many local galleries.
• Topography optimises natural and introduced features to be seen from many points.
• tromp oiel  create the optical illusion often of 3D imagery.
• chiaroscuro is light,  shade and shadow  a gardeners staple tool
• Ha ha is not to be laughed at as it creates a natural barrier without spoiling a landscape view

Garden terms from Life and Nature

• Allergenicity or a substance such as pollen that causes an allergic reaction
• Clints and grykes are fissures or gaps in limestone pavement. Typically ferns and mosses with the occasional stunted tree can just about get a foothold in these cracks.

From Old Gardeners

• Epigeic  worms are living at the soil surface to breakdown leaf litter. Endogeic worms live underground and help aerate the soil by making horizontal burrows.
• New vegetables  ‘pot 8 eau’
• The pigment Delphinidin is not produced by  roses, lilies, tulips, carnations, chrysanthemums and gerberas so these plants never produce blue flowers.
• Achines a small, dry one-seeded fruit that does not open to release the seed.
• Monocarpellate seed formed from one carpel.