Adaptation 1
While driving home from a client’s garden last week, I noticed that a front garden nearby had been utterly transformed. I don’t recall what existed there previously, but it must have been unremarkable because its replacement is attention-grabbing — so much so that I pulled over to the roadside to look it over.
Its style is undoubtedly inspired by Japanese — or perhaps more specifically Zen — gardens. Extremely minimalist in appearance, it has only four elements. The first is a bed of medium-grade two-toned grey gravel, which has been unevenly spread and is perhaps unfinished in that regard. There are also a half dozen brown-grey rocks of identical geological origin and darker than the gravel. The only plants are two Screw-pines (most likely Pandanus cookii, which is endemic to Queensland) two metres or so tall, or about one fifth their mature height. They’re positioned at opposite corners of the rectangular garden bed. And then there’s the space between things, or mu (nothingness) in Japanese — what has been termed elsewhere as ‘negative space’, though I’ve never quite understood why? Surely space is space, and is either occupied/inhabited, or vacant/empty — as opposed to positive or negative, both of which have double, quite different meanings.
The arrangement of rocks appears more random than considered. There is something about their spacing — the mu between them — that seems out of kilter. Perhaps too evenly distributed? Of course that’s nothing other than opinion. I’m no expert on the subject of rock placement in Japanese gardens, or those inspired by them. Six rocks have been used, which would be an unusual (even) number to find in a Japanese garden of its size, and there isn’t much in the way of variation in their volumes or shapes, let alone their colours or textures. To my eyes, they’re too uniform.
Regardless of those misgivings, I’m impressed by the gardener’s efforts for two reasons. First, in Townsville, until now I’ve not seen a garden that in some way suggests a style based on Japanese gardens. There is then, at least another home-owner who appreciates the art, and perhaps another designer too, if they’re not one and the same. Second, Screw-pines are an inspired choice because in form, they don’t much resemble any plants that immediately come to mind when thinking about those typically used in Japanese gardens. Certainly with their aerial prop roots that develop with age, they’ll look quite unlike any other plant I’ve seen in Japan other than large mature trees with limbs supported by slender wooden posts added as they grow. So, once mature, there’ll be some vague visual likeness, albeit entirely natural.
The nearest equivalent to Screw-pines that comes to mind is Sago palm (Cycas revoluta). It’s the length of leaves (but not shape) common to both, and their similar large cone-like fruiting structures born once mature that mark the similarity. The Sago-palm is native to Japan and south-eastern China, but other cycad species are found in Australia, and one in particular is common to the Townsville region. Cycas media has a natural range across most of northern Australia, and can be seen, in places, from the side of the main road connecting Townsville with coastal towns northward. It would make an excellent substitute for Sago-palm should one ever want to create a Japanese-inspired garden with local rather than exotic species. Six of them grow in pots in my backyard.
There are, however, a couple of none-too-minor draw-backs to growing Cycas media. Just like its more common Japanese relative, it’s a slow grower. Excruciatingly so. Unlike the Sago-palm, however, it is well nigh impossible to find mature specimens — at least in Townsville — for garden planting. Seedlings are available from at least one specialist nursery in Rowes Bay, but small plants can take ten years or more to make a noticeable visual impact. So perhaps the Screw-pine is a better choice, and although it isn’t anywhere near as slow a grower as Cycas media it isn’t much of a fast grower either. Though before rushing out to buy one or more, be warned that mature specimens above a metre or so in height are not inexpensive.
Another indigenous plant that has a similar overall form to all but the most mature Sago-palm, but which is otherwise quite different — and a fast grower — is one of my favourite indigenous plants, the Swamp lily (Crinum pedunculatum). It develops a thick stem not unlike a young cycad, and also sports a large crown of long but differently shaped leaves held at similar angles. To my eye, mature plants have the same visual impact as Sago-palm. It is readily available, and because it grows fast, can be bought as tube-stock for just a few dollars.
After a year of living here, I’ve noticed other plants indigenous to Townsville and its surrounds which could be suitable substitutes for some of the more commonly used plants in Japanese gardens. In fact, there are two I’m aware of which are the same species. Observers might, however, require a little more convincing with other species when it comes to them being Japanese garden plant doppelgängers. Most aren’t nearly as similar in appearance, nor as closely related as the Sago-palm is to Cycas media. With a little imagination, however, they ought to fit the bill if used and maintained well in a Japanese inspired garden.
The first time I saw the Cardwell lily (Proiphys amboinensis), it was as an online image. The plant seemed to be mislabeled because the mature leaves, in shape and size — and to a certain extent its flowers — appear almost identical to those of that genus of northern hemisphere herbaceous perennials adored by cool-temperate gardeners and snails the world over, the hosta. Both genera belong to the same order of plants, Asparagales, so they’re not entirely unrelated. Because they appear so similar, I wonder whether they might also be worthy examples of convergent evolution?
From the little I know, hostas seem more popular in gardens throughout the cooler climates of Anglophone countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, than gardens in Japan where they seem to be used sparingly — that observation might reflect little more than my cultural bias, of course. Hostas are winter-deciduous, retreating to beneath the soil to avoid extreme cold. In nature, Cardwell lilies behave similarly, but forgo their leaves during the dry season to avoid catastrophic desiccation. In cultivation, they tend to be more generous, however, and will retain leaves through the dry season providing sufficient soil moisture is available.
If you’ve ever seen large, simple-leaved hostas growing among ferns with fine, highly-divided fronds, they make for a striking visual display. In Townsville, the Cardwell lily would grow well beneath a medium-sized evergreen tree, next to a large rock with some Fishbone fern (Lomaria nuda) peppered about. Another interesting display could be achieved with the bold, narrow, upright, undivided fronds of the Fishtail fern (Microsorum punctatum) growing between them. Although native to Queensland and New South Wales, it is also native to all but the drier parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, East Asia (not Japan), South East Asia, and the South Pacific, and would grow well with Cardwell lilies which, like hostas, require partial shade and moist soil.
Speaking of medium-sized trees, White bauhinia (Lysiphyllum hookeri), is, in my opinion, quite the underrated garden tree in this area of the world. Also known as Hooker’s bauhinia and Queensland ebony, at Alligator Creek two mature specimens grow in a client’s parkland-style five acre garden, and their open, long, slender limbs remind me of those of Japanese maples (Acer palmatum). Unlike maples, however, the leaves of White bauhinia don’t present a flush of brilliant autumnal colour, nor the fresh light green of new spring growth. In that respect, the two trees are as chalk and cheese. Nonetheless, the dappled shade thrown by both is delightfully similar. What’s more, though the leaves of both differ markedly in shape, the bauhinia’s curiously double-lobed leaves are similar in size. White bauhinia has another trick up its sleeve — clear, white, five-petalled flowers with brilliant carmine-red stamens which appear throughout the year, often in response to rain.
Moss grows all too easily in humid places like Kyōto, but Townsville’s seasonally long dry winters don’t favour its growth — certainly not year round. But with a few low-growing indigenous plants, it’s possible to recreate something of the lush, ground-hugging, verdant cover that moss is put to use in Japanese gardens. Among them I’d recommend Scurvy weed (Commelina lanceolata), White pratia (Pratia leucotos), and Native violet (Viola banksii). The first won’t reproduce such a ground-hugging green carpet effect on account of it’s approximately thirty centimetre height, but being hardier than the others which require consistently moist soil and shade to thrive, it’s worth a try. And what’s more, it has charming cobalt blue flowers. Indeed, unlike moss, all three ground-covers are flowering plants, but that’s not such an undesirable point of difference. One needn’t be too much of a purist when it comes to such things.
Two plants native to both Queensland and Japan — and elsewhere as they’ve a geographically wide natural distribution — are aquatic; Sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), and Water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis). Parts of both are edible, and although I’ve not seen the latter in Japanese gardens, in form, its vertical, rigid, cylindrical, reed-like stems are not very dissimilar to those of the Rough horsetail (Equisetum hyemale — syn. japonicum). The latter is often seen growing in long narrow beds in the front of inner-city dwellings or along the sides of houses in built-up areas.
The Sacred lotus is synonymous with Buddhism (and Hinduism), and as such is no stranger to many a Buddhist temple in Japan. For gardeners who have or want a water feature in their garden, it would be a fine plant to include. As far as aquatic plants go, however, they’re quite large and will require a reasonably sized body of deep water to thrive. With equally large sensuous pink or white flowers, to my eye they’re at their best when grown en masse. Further, they’re a seasonal plant, and other than their large oddly shaped seed heads, the residue of plant material that remains once growth has ceased until next season might look too messy for more fastidious gardeners, and is a chore to remove. They’re likely ill-suited to suburban gardens other tham those owned by the most ardent Sacred-lotus stalwarts.
There are more plants native to the Townsville region which can be used as perfectly good substitutes for some of those traditionally grown in Japanese gardens. For the few readers who have, or might have an interest in such things (that’s probably just me!) others will be described in my next post.
To be continued…
