Japan: A Peaceful Retreat
Hear from Botanical Guide Simon Rickard on travelling to Japan in Spring and Autumn
Simon Rickard has been a guide for Botanica since 2005. He started working with Botanica while still head gardener at The Diggers Club. Simon is one of our most travelled Botanical Guides and is an encyclopaedia of knowledge, which he loves to share with our guests. Simon has a particular love for all things Japanese.
The gardens of Japan are as awe inspiring as anything you might encounter in Great Britain. However, while British gardens are about maximum fullness, colour, scent and botanical richness, Japanese gardens are the exact opposite. They are about serene minimalism. They use as few elements as necessary in order to communicate the essence of the design.
Sometimes Japanese gardens don't even contain plants at all. This is why Japan has been my favourite destination to travel with Botanica over the last twenty years. I find it immensely rewarding seeing Botanica guests develop a deeper appreciation of what they are looking at, and helping them find the beauty in simplicity. I love seeing them grasp why a garden the size of their living room, containing nothing more than fifteen stones set in a sea of gravel, could be a UNESCO World Heritage site, and how it differs from the pile of boulders dumped at the end of their driveway!
Botanica visits Japan during spring and autumn. More often than not, the weather is still quite wintry at cherry blossom time. But even in the cold, magic can happen. One of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced was accompanying my group to Kyōto’s Kiyomizu temple at night. As we enjoyed the view overlooking the lights of the city, surrounded by beautifully lit cherry blossom, snowflakes began falling silently around us. It was like being in some cinematographer’s dream. A more pleasant time to visit Japan is a month later, when the tree peonies bloom.
Yuushien Garden
The sight of 30,000 gigantic tree peony blossoms, in satiny white, pinks, purples and reds, floating on the ornamental pond at Yuushien Garden in Matsue, was the most breathtaking sight I have seen. I will never forget it.
That said, my favourite season to visit Japan is in the autumn. The weather is mild, with brilliant blue skies, and Japan’s autumn colours are out of this world. Every hillside is embroidered like a tapestry, as millions of Japanese maple trees turn every shade of yellow, orange and red.
Helping guests negotiate a new culture is another aspect of botanical guiding I enjoy. Giving people the confidence to try an unfamiliar food, or appreciate a different way of doing things, helps broaden their horizons, and fosters international understanding. I feel privileged to have met very elderly survivors of the atomic bomb, who come to Hiroshima Peace Park to tell their stories and advocate for world peace. Seeing tiny children decked out in bright kimonos, heading to the shrine with their parents to celebrate 7-5-3 Day is unbelievably cute.
Japanese people are extremely generous with anyone who makes the slightest attempt at a few words of their language. International travel is such a force for good, and if you get to look at gardens along the way, so much the better. And where better than Japan?
Japan’s garden tradition is steeped in centuries of religion, politics and aesthetics in a way that no other country’s is. Their design skills and gardening techniques are both highly specialised. For this reason, I have rarely seen a convincing ‘Japanese garden’ outside Japan itself. If you want to experience the authentic Japanese garden aesthetic, you must travel there. I look forward to many more trips in the future.