The snow-clad slopes of Mount Fuji
are one of the stunning images of Japan that we all recognise.
But despite a fascination for the country and its culture,
there remains something mysterious and intriguing.
And although we may admire Japanese gardens -
and our own gardens are full of Japanese plants,
like cherries and maples and hostas -
few of us really understand or know them.
They remain an enigma.
So, I have set out to try and get to the heart of the culture
that lies behind some of the most beautiful gardens in the world.
I shall be visiting Japan during its two most radiant seasons -
spring and autumn.
I'll follow the development of stroll gardens,
experience the serenity of a tea garden,
and learn the secrets of creating a Zen landscape.
The stone said to me, "It's OK - this angle, this position."
The stone is talking to you? Yes.
I'm setting out to relish, contemplate,
and hopefully learn to understand these iconic gardens of Japan.
Most of us have an idea of what a Japanese garden should contain.
There should be cloud pruning of azaleas,
maples with their delicate leaves shimmering in the light,
moss gardens, rock, gravel, water gently flowing.
And this garden has it all.
But this is not Japan.
We're at Tatton Park in the heart of the Cheshire countryside,
and there is a story behind this garden
because it was inspired by an exhibition in London
over 100 years ago.
The Japan-British Exhibition at White City in 1910
lifted the curtain on a country shrouded in mystery.
And this was the first chance
for most people to see anything from Japan.
Buildings, costumes, pottery and art
all dazzled audiences with their novelty,
and on top of this, two gardens had been brought over to England.
This inspired a craze for building Japanese gardens.
Lord Egerton, the owner of Tatton Park,
visited the exhibition, fell in love with these gardens,
and decided to create his own version at Tatton.
So, a team of Japanese gardeners arrived
and created what we see today.
This is a lovely garden
and it certainly gives you a real flavour of Japan,
but I want to see the real thing,
and for that, I need to go to Japan.
Talk to anybody about the best time to come to Japan,
and they will always say spring,
when the cherry blossom is at its best.
Well, that's all fine and good,
but the cherry blossom comes at different times,
it only lasts for a few day and can be destroyed by the weather.
But it looks like I've got lucky.
For this handful of precious days,
the blossom is gloriously everywhere,
and I've decided to head first to a garden in western Japan.
I'm beginning my journey here, at Kenrokuen in the town of Kanazawa,
because this is one of the three great gardens of Japan.
The name Kenrokuen means "Garden of the Six Sublimities"
and refers to the legendary six qualities of the ideal garden -
spaciousness, seclusion, creativity,
antiquity, water and scenic views.
Kenrokuen features ponds, waterfalls, bridges,
and, of course, spectacular blossom.
It was originally the private garden of the local feudal lords,
the hugely wealthy Maeda family.
They began to create it in the 1670s
as the pleasure ground for nearby Kanazawa Castle
in order that their wealth and power wouldn't attract
the adverse attention of the shogun in Kyoto.
And it was developed and redesigned for nearly 200 years until,
in 1874, at the end of the feudal era,
the garden was made into a public park.
Today, Kenrokuen is meticulously tended
by an army of gardeners,
including the women scrupulously picking through
the velvety carpet of moss,
weeding out every single unwanted blade of grass.
Even on a site of 28 acres,
there is a fastidious attention to detail.
So often, when I visit a garden, people say,
"Oh, you should've come last week," or, "You should come next month."
But this is the first time when I can absolutely say,
"I should be here today."
This is the sublime, perfect moment.
The cherry blossom, briefly, for this one day,
is at its fragile, outrageous, ecstatic best.
Before I came to Japan, people said,
"Well, you must try and see the cherries
"because they're really lovely."
But they were wrong. They're not really lovely.
They're amazing. They're mind-blowing.
Although the cherry blossom lasts for just one short week,
it is THE horticultural mascot of Japan.
Hanami, cherry blossom festivals,
have been held in Japan since the seventh century,
and the arrival of the blossom is the nation's top news story for days
and the excuse for national celebration.
And Kenrokuen is a paradise of cherry blossom of every kind.
To understand the cultural significance of this,
I'm meeting Professor Suzuki,
who is an expert on traditional Japanese gardens.
Sitting here in this lovely garden
that is considered to be one of the greatest in Japan, why is that?
This garden has a lot of features of landscapes with water
and also a panoramic view towards the mountain
and to the ocean.
Japan itself, it's an island nation,
so this is kind of a compacted environment of Japan.
Clearly, the cherry blossom is really important.
What is it about the cherry blossom that is so special?
Just because we love it. Yes.
We celebrate spring has come.
One of the aspects of Japanese gardens
that is very different from the West is the huge care
given to the relationship between solid objects,
such as the branches of a tree.
One of the things that is evident is this careful control of space,
and also this idea of ma.
Ma is the space in between.
So, one branch and another branch,
we have to think about the in-between.
Any visitor to Japanese gardens
is bound to notice the presence of a lot of rocks, wood, moss.
Why is this?
Because we have really naturalistic landscaped gardens.
So, we kind of mimic or we learn from the nature.
So, you're saying it is part of the natural world?
It always relates? Yes.
Despite all the thousands of cherries
that are billowing blossom everywhere,
this rather scrawny tree,
with just a few flowers emerging, is really special.
It's called Tai-haku - the great white cherry.
In 18th-century Japan,
this was the most prized cherry of them all,
and then it disappeared.
But in 1923, in a Sussex garden in England,
a man found a cherry growing
that he liked very much but couldn't recognise,
so he called upon the great cherry expert,
Captain Collingwood Ingram,
who recognised it as the missing Tai-haku,
but couldn't work out how it got there,
so he grafted it, took the trees back to Japan,
and in due course, it was acknowledged
as the missing Tai-haku,
which means, amongst other things, that this tree here
is taken from the grass from that Sussex garden.
Now, why it disappeared, and even more,
why it turned up in Sussex in the 1920s, no-one knows.
The most dramatic evidence of the constant desire
to reflect nature at Kenrokuen
is in its hundreds of majestic, sculpted pine trees.
This is the Karasakinomatsu pine,
and in a garden that is full of magnificent pines,
this is probably the best of the lot.
The 200-year-old pine characterises the Japanese desire
for trees to look as natural as possible
by virtue of extreme artifice, and this isn't in any way hidden,
so the branches are propped up
and held in precise place by wooden posts,
which is all part of the pursuit of distilled nature.
This is something that is very particular to Japanese gardens,
and the bigger and older the tree,
the more prominent the props will be,
but that doesn't, in any way, detract from their magnificence.
Pines will grow in harsh mountain landscapes
and survive extreme cold,
and the Japanese revere them as a symbol of man's inner strength
in the face of adversity.
For centuries, gardeners have been trying
to recreate the natural appearance of the weathered mountain pine,
and to that end, have developed incredibly skilled
and intricate pruning techniques.
Kenrokuen's head gardener, Mr Hitoshi Shishime...
Hello.
..is in charge of this vast garden,
these hundreds of manicured ancient trees,
and he shows me what he and his team are aiming to achieve.
The idea is to prune the branches into a triangular shape,
creating space between them in accordance with ma.
And if that seems extraordinarily precise,
it is nothing compared to the next stage.
Last year's needles are stripped away,
leaving just the fresh new growth.
You do this by hand in the trees?
That must take a lot of man hours, a lot of work.
Wow!
The thought of 60 gardeners in one tree
stripping off the pine needles is just mind-boggling.
I clearly have got a long way to go
before I really get into the Japanese gardening psyche.
Japan might be a crowded and often hectic country,
but like its pruning, train travel involves precision and accuracy.
I love the way that, when you buy a train ticket,
you don't just book a seat,
but also an exact spot on the platform
where the door nearest to your seat will inevitably open before you.
Japan's gardening culture dates back over 1,500 years,
making it one of the oldest in the world.
So, I am now heading to its garden capital -
the ancient city of Kyoto.
For 1,000 years,
from the 8th century to the middle of the 19th century,
Kyoto was the capital of Japan -
the centre of government, of the military and the arts -
and there are hundreds of gardens down there in amongst the city.
So, if you want to see all the different styles
that evolved throughout that 1,000-year history,
this is the place to come.
Kyoto is unique in Japan because even in quiet backstreets,
there are temples, one after the other,
and most of them have gardens,
so that the net effect of that is that there are hundreds of gardens.
Nori Hamamoto is a local garden designer,
and I'm meeting her over tea and green-tea ice cream
to find out just why gardens are so important.
Kyoto is a city full of gardens. Why is that?
Kyoto City is surrounded by mountains,
and a lot of rivers came from the mountains.
So, the natural circumstances were very good
for making gardens in Kyoto.
Japanese gardens have a kind of reverence about them.
Is this directed at gardens or just part of a reverence for nature?
Attitude to the nature, yes.
The nature of Japan is sometimes very...strong -
sometimes too strong - like a volcano or things like that.
So, Japanese people traditionally think,
admire and respect the nature.
I've seen the most fabulous cherry blossom in the last few days.
So many people enjoy cherry blossom parties,
viewing parties.
What is it that people are celebrating?
I know the flowers are beautiful, but what does it mean?
Drinking. It's a drinking party, I think. Drinking? Yes.
And so gathering with neighbours and friends.
It's an excuse to go out and drink, and especially outside.
Well, that explains quite a lot. BOTH LAUGH
The cherry blossom inspires a release from the daily grind,
and there is a real sense of celebration and pride.
Shops rent out kimonos for photo opportunities,
and the whole nation celebrates with a carnival spirit.
Although the cherry-lined streets of Kyoto are packed,
there is an atmosphere of gentle delight.
Romance fills the petal-strewn air,
and the amazing blossom is the ideal backdrop
for wedding photos.
This is an unforgettable experience
quite unlike anything I've ever seen before.
It gives me a fresh insight
into the importance of this spring flowering.
It's a mistake to think of the cherry blossom
as being essentially a transient, fragile beauty.
It's much more robust than that.
It's about renewal and refreshing the world.
This is April 1st today - the beginning of the financial year,
the beginning of a new term, a new job,
new resolutions and a new life.
And it's that, and the energy of that,
that the blossom symbolises and celebrates.
However beautiful and important it may be,
I've come to Kyoto for more than just the cherry blossom.
Nowhere in Japan has more garden history,
and on the edge of the city,
in the grounds of the vast Daikakuji Temple,
is the Osawa Pond.
The temple was originally a palace
constructed for the Emperor Saga in the ninth century,
and he created the garden based around a large artificial lake
made by damming a nearby waterfall.
Imperial gardens of the Heian period like this one
were all essentially water gardens
made to be enjoyed not just from the banks,
but from on the water itself.
This is one of the earliest of all surviving Japanese gardens,
and certainly the earliest water garden.
It's a style known as a pond spring boating garden,
which pretty much describes it.
And the idea was that you both looked out onto the water
and saw the reflection of the mountains
and enjoyed the water itself, and also took to it on boats.
And there are stories of parties and games enjoyed by the court.
The 11th-century Tale Of Genji
beautifully describes these garden frolics...
..detailing the floating orchestras and seductions
that took place on the water.
We're all very familiar
with the red bridge in a Japanese garden
as being a really distinctive feature,
and they're often very beautiful, but they lead somewhere.
In this case, they lead to islands set in the lake,
and islands are really important in Japanese culture.
It's very aware of itself as an island nation.
More importantly, the gods resided on islands.
On this one is an ancient oak that is believed to contain spirits.
Now, in Shintoism, the indigenous religion of Japan,
many kinds of natural objects have this property,
and they are all revered.
Could be a tree. Could be a rock. It could even be a building.
And to protect those spirits, the object is wrapped in rope,
hence this wonderful thick rope bound around the oak tree.
The essence of this early style of garden is open.
The light is reflected on this great expanse of water.
But I now want to move on
to see a style of garden that is different,
in that it is intimate and enclosed, even hidden.
Around the same time as the Osawa Pond was made,
Japanese monks travelled to China
and returned with Buddhist teachings.
The first Buddhist temples in Japan
were built in the isolated spots on hills and mountains
to provide quiet places for the monks to study.
CHANTING
Half an hour north of Kyoto is the Sanzenin Temple
built in the mountainous village of Ohara in 1156.
The garden within its walls couldn't be more different
from both the open expanse of water at Osawa
or the blousy, blossom-decked streets of the city...
..because here, all is a glowing, velvety green,
created by a plant that we in the West vilify,
but which the Japanese revere - moss.
I've never seen moss like this.
It is extraordinary, the way that it's sort of slightly rolling
and bubbling and lapping up the trunks of the Japanese cedars.
And when you walk in, it has a kind of green intensity
that's like walking into a vast, cathedral-like building.
In fact, the actual temple buildings
are completely surrounded by giant trees
growing out of the sea of moss, which grows slowly
and can take years to cover a large area.
So, in Japan, it has become a symbol
of the patient virtues of tradition and antiquity.
As it's intolerant of air pollution or too much sun,
it's also valued for its sensitive nature
because only precisely suitable conditions
will allow it to thrive.
Although I know that many British people
see moss as a particularly pernicious weed
sent to blight their lawns, in fact, it's treasured in Japan.
There are over 2,500 different types of moss,
and a moss garden typically will have a number of different ones,
which will be very carefully manicured and tweaked
for their contrast and effect.
So, it is very highly prized.
The combination of the moss and the trees
inevitably creates a reverential air,
but that's punctured by these little round faces
appearing out of the moss,
and that lightens the whole atmosphere.
In fact, there is a slightly more serious side to it
because these are Bodhisattvas,
and they're there to protect the souls
of children that have died young or died before birth.
Taikan Uda is a monk at the temple.
What is the relationship between Buddhism and gardens?
Yes, absolutely.
This garden captures perfectly the spirit of the Buddhism
that came to Japan in the eighth century.
But then, 400 years later, a new brand of Buddhism came here,
and with it, a brand-new style of garden.
This is Kodaiji Temple in central Kyoto...
..and outside, like most Buddhist temples,
there are stalls selling omamori,
which are amulets dedicated to Buddhist figures.
These are good-luck charms, and they're very specific,
so you have good luck on social success...
..protection against traffic accidents,
good health there.
And the red one is "pass exams".
"Work luck." Probably need that.
"Love fortune." So, really, all your needs are sorted.
The temple was originally built in 1606 as a memorial,
and remains very calm and beautiful today.
Kodaiji was founded by the widow of a warlord.
She spent the rest of her life here mourning her fallen husband.
And as well as the spectacular covered bridge,
water and carefully placed stones,
there was another completely new element to the garden.
Known in Japanese as karesansui,
which literally translates as dry mountain water,
this is a Zen garden, and this style of gardening,
with its carefully placed rocks, raked gravel,
and minimalist planting has come to exemplify the austerity
and intellectual rigour of Zen Buddhism.
These were intended for quiet contemplation,
having first, of course, removed your boots.
This garden does have some of the recognisable features
of trees and moss,
but that moss very quickly runs out
and laps against a shore of raked gravel -
a great expanse of empty space.
You arrive at a couple of very precise features,
circles with mini cones on it, and that's it.
And that does seem like no kind of garden at all,
but when you think about Zen Buddhism
and how monks were trained very rigorously
to empty their minds, to completely remove everything
in order that there might be space for enlightenment
and a full appreciation of the world to come in,
then you see that these gardens are examples of that.
They're, if you like, pictures of the Zen mind.
Zen is really difficult to understand
and practically impossible for the Western mind.
But Zen gardens have to be tended, and as a gardener,
I think I can probably relate best to them in practical terms,
so I'm going to learn a little piece of Zen gardening.
And my lesson is taking place next door
in the sister temple, Entokuin, with the monk Hiroshi Kitayama.
The rake draws rills in the special river gravel,
so that the lines flow with the surrounding boundaries,
curving as they bend
and keeping dead parallel to straight edges.
OK. OK. Shall I have a go?
No stop-go. No stop. No stop-go. No? Well, I've got to breathe!
I've raked many a furrow in my time, but never quite like this.
The rake is very heavy. There's a lot of weight on it.
And the teeth are bamboo. Rather beautiful.
OK, so...
Eventually, remembering to breathe, I do get the hang of it.
Great. Beautiful.
The raking is a form of meditation,
and the monks would do this daily, so the breathing is very important.
So, I breathe in and slowly breathe out.
In Zen Buddhism, every human activity
is potentially an act of prayer, even raking.
So, the process becomes just as important
as the garden that it results in.
Focusing completely on what you're doing...
..not only makes you aware of the process,
but actually is very calming,
and the truth is, I often find this in my own garden -
whether you're raking or mowing or sweeping leaves,
it's a form of liberation
that I suspect most gardeners would recognise.
Zen gardens were designed as a way of translating
fashionable, 12th-century, Chinese ink paintings
into three-dimensional reality.
Misty landscapes became white sand,
and jagged mountains and islands were turned into stones.
Zen gardens were also a practical response
to the conditions of 15th-century Japan.
Master designer Yasuo Kitayama explains.
Mr Kitayama also has advice on how best to appreciate Zen gardens.
The biggest problem for the Western visitor
is that there is so much to find out
before you can really work out what you think or feel.
But these gardens are definitely still relevant today,
and in modern Japan,
they can be found in some unlikely places.
Tsurumi Station in Greater Tokyo
is probably not the first place
you'd expect to find a garden designed for quiet contemplation.
And yet, here, amongst the city bustle and the crowds,
is a garden on the station rooftop every bit as peaceful as a temple.
And I'm keen to know how this is used
by contemporary city dwellers, so I'm meeting its designer,
the Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno.
Tell me how relevant a garden like this is
This society, many people work
and have very busy days,
so I hope that people should have the good time
to feel the fresh air and to see the beautiful sky.
So, tell me why you've chosen the elements you have
and how that relates to Zen philosophy.
Zen is very simple and not decorative,
so I thought to use only stone and soil.
Things like... You have this, the concrete and the wood.
This is not concrete. Oh, it isn't? It is soil. It is soil!
Well, there you are. There you are. Yeah.
I thought humans should feel the natural...
Yes. ..materials.
So, that's why I used stone and wood and soil.
No artificial... So, no artificial at all.
And how do you feel about things like the vending machine
in your garden? Does that...? You don't mind that?
I accept it. You accept it. OK.
The rooftop also has a more traditional gravel garden.
Tell me about this garden. What is happening in here?
These are stone arrangements.
Yes, I understand. It is to make them not perfection.
Imperfection is our beauty.
So, that does seem to be the key -
that if imperfection is the beauty,
that allows room for movement and change. Mm.
Another concept that's illustrated here is mu -
the expression of emptiness.
This space is just vacant.
We say mu. Mu. Mu. I understand. Nothing. Yes, nothing. Yes, yes.
We can't express everything.
That's why we keep mu - vacant space.
How do you set about doing this,
and how do you know when it is right?
Well, I always communicate with each stone. OK.
My expression is, the stone said to me,
"It's OK - this angle, this position."
The stone is talking to you? Yes.
Well, thank you very much indeed for talking to me.
Thank you. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
AS VOICEOVER: I'm not sure who's supposed to stop bowing first.
There's no question that, for the average Western gardener,
it's quite demanding to come in here
and see it as just a place of beauty.
But this combination of very natural materials
with these very modern sort of intrusions
of 21st-century life need not be mutually exclusive.
They can work together.
And it does create a place for quiet reflection
in the middle of a frenetically busy city.
Zen gardens can be found right across Japan,
and with their characteristic elements
of gravel and stone, they've largely remained the same
since their initial creation in the 15th century.
But in 1939,
one designer working in the grounds of Tofukuji Temple in Kyoto
challenged that status quo.
To many modern visitors,
this is just another fascinating rock and gravel garden,
but when this was first made, it caused an uproar.
Mirei Shigemori,
now reckoned to be one of the great landscape designers
of the 20th century,
was commissioned by the abbot to create gardens around his hall.
This is the result.
The way that the stones were laid on edge
and gathered in large groups was considered shocking.
One of the reasons why there was such a furore
when this garden was made was because
it overturned conventions and traditions
that had lasted for over 1,000 years.
And it began with a book called Sakuteiki -
Notes On Gardening -
which outlined all aspects of gardening,
and amongst other things, it said, in regard to stones,
that if you placed a stone the wrong way up
or grouped them badly together,
it would bring bad luck to the household.
I first visited this garden over 10 years ago now.
I kept thinking about it in that time,
but it's not the rocks and the gravel
that keep nagging away at me.
It's the moss and the way that Shigemori used it.
Instead of just stone,
Shigemori used moss to create islands.
And on the west side of the hall,
waves of moss run into clipped azalea bushes,
creating an abstract design.
Round the corner,
past this lovely fresh green of the maple leaves,
is the garden that has haunted me.
It consists of a simple chequerboard
of paving stones and moss
in a pattern that begins geometrically uniform,
but as it moves along, starts to unravel.
Quite soon after I visited this garden,
I had a bout of ill health,
and I had a lot of time to think when I was recovering.
And amongst other things, I thought about my own mortality,
and this garden was one of the things that kept coming back,
and particularly the way that this pattern of life
that seems so regular and predictable
breaks down and dissolves and disappears,
and yet, despite all that, retains its vitality,
retains that sense of life running through all things.
And for a garden to do that so simply and beautifully is,
I believe, a work of genius.
One thing that unites all styles of Zen gardens is their use of stone,
and I've now come to the town of Okazaki,
on Japan's east coast,
which is famous for its stonemasons.
Nicknamed the stone capital of Japan,
with a chisel as its mascot,
it's been the centre of the craft since the 16th century,
and at one time, was the hub for over 350 individual craftsmen.
Today, I'm meeting one of Japan's few female stonemasons, Azusa Ueno.
Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you.
This is fascinating.
How old were you when you began to learn the stonemason craft?
And how long does it take to become a master?
I would very much like to see a few techniques. Could I try?
Sure. Thank you.
Konnichiwa. Konnichiwa. Hello.
When you're striking it, is the angle relevant?
Right, the moment has come. SHE LAUGHS
I noticed they put their foot up, like that. So, it's just...
Is this right? Am I doing it badly?
If I were them, I'd be very worried about me ruining their work.
I wouldn't let someone come in and work in my garden like that.
I love all crafts and skills, and to be allowed to do it,
and importantly, to use their tools, was a great privilege,
but also cos it gets you closer to the heart of these objects.
It's not just knowledge. It's feeling, too.
Now, if there's one type of Japanese garden
that is almost the complete opposite to a Zen rock landscape,
it is the traditional tea garden.
Tea arrived from China in the ninth century
when Buddhist monks drank it to keep them awake
during long meditation sessions.
But over the centuries,
the drinking of it became highly ritualised,
and samurai, monks and geishas served tea
in elaborately formal ceremonies.
Today, it's as popular as ever,
harvested, traded and enjoyed in cafes and ceremonies
right across the country.
A style of garden dedicated to tea drinking
emerged in the 16th century,
and was soon to be found up and down the nation.
Tea gardens were built around teahouses,
with the approach - very carefully controlled and planted -
to be an essential part of the experience.
Today, I've come to visit the tea garden
at Kenninji Temple in Kyoto.
The temple was originally founded by a 12th-century monk named Eisai,
who's famed for first spreading tea culture across the country.
As people approached the teahouse,
they had to get rid of all the status and grandeur of office
so that they entered in as equals.
And this is where it began.
Immediately, you find yourself on a path made out of stones
that are not straight, they're not even,
they're not evenly spaced, so they're tricky to walk on.
It's difficult and you have to concentrate.
This slows and focuses the mind away from the busy world.
In fact, the tea ceremony itself
is the culmination of the approach through the garden.
The plants and rocks along the way
are meant to look as natural as possible,
creating the image of a winding path deep in the mountains,
leading to a hermit's hut.
There are few flowers, lest they distract the visitor.
As you carefully teeter along this awkward path,
you're surrounded by green.
There's the green of the foliage, the green of the moss on the ground,
and you get glimpses of the garden.
It's planted and pruned so that your view is obscured,
and the effect of this is to envelop you
and make you concentrate, and all the cares fall away.
Everything becomes focused on what is to come,
which is the tea ceremony itself.
Every tea garden had stone basins at strategic points
so you could stop and wash your hands and cleanse yourself,
and then you go and sit and wait.
And finally, when you're called...
..you have to come in
and crawl through this very low opening,
so that the last traces of self-importance are left behind.
I have previously attended a formal tea ceremony in Japan,
but today, I'm going for something a little bit more relaxed.
Thank you.
This form of tea is incredibly intense.
It's like a sort of double espresso of tea.
As part of the tea ceremony,
you have a little taste of something sweet...
..before drinking the very bitter tea...
..which is an acquired taste, but will certainly keep you awake.
But in contemporary Japan,
not all tea gardens are quite so traditional.
Behind this modern-looking gatehouse...
..I'm told that there is an unusual take on the teahouse...
..and I'm curious to see what it looks like.
This old-fashioned temple
is also the beautiful home of Mr and Mrs Inoue.
Thank you. Thank you.
But it is theIR garden that I've come to see.
The previous one was destroyed by an earthquake in 1995,
so they asked their famous architect friend,
Terunobu Fujimori,
to design a teahouse and garden in its place.
The smell of green tea is so distinctive.
But this tea garden is anything but traditional.
It is completely unique.
A traditional tea garden is clothed in green plants,
but as with all the work of Fujimori,
this one is totally different.
Here, there isn't much planting at all,
but an enormous great arch and what looks like a snake,
but in fact, that relates to the building.
This is a Buddhist temple
and the arch is the arch to heaven that you have to pass through.
And what might be seen as a snake, in fact,
is the river that you have to cross to get to heaven.
And then you approach the teahouse itself.
Now, like all teahouses,
this has a conventionally low opening,
so you have to abase yourself.
It's very small so that you crawl in.
But, unlike any other, this is a teahouse and a treehouse.
And inside here is everything you need...
..for a proper tea ceremony.
I really like the way that modernity and wit
mingles with the traditional, and it's a really clever way
of keeping those old traditions alive
in the modern world.
That compact design is evocative of one thing
that unites the country today - space, or rather the lack of it.
Although that was a tiny teahouse and a tiny garden,
actually, by Japanese standards, it was a luxury.
Most people have no space at all,
and yet that desire to grow things is evident everywhere you go.
There are pots in the street.
There are pots outside shops and houses.
And, actually, that desire has been channelled
into a very traditional art and craft,
and it's called ikebana.
Today, there are over 1,000 schools in the world teaching ikebana,
or flower arranging,
but the oldest and perhaps the most famous is Ikenobo,
set amidst a Kyoto temple.
The art of flower arranging dates back to the seventh century,
when flowers were left as offerings to gods.
The eighth shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa,
a great patron of the arts,
decreed that flowers left on altars should be placed in a way
that showed thought in their preparation.
I've been invited to a class here at Ikenobo,
but as it's for the advanced flower arranger,
it isn't deemed suitable for a rank novice like myself,
but just watching is fascinating enough.
The class takes place in almost total silence,
which is a mark of their respect for the art.
However, I do have a private lesson lined up,
although I first need to buy all my materials in the school shop.
The idea is that you wander around,
see what you like and select it, and then that's wrapped up for you,
and then you can go and do your flower arranging.
What I'm thinking is
it would be nice to do some sort of arrangement
that got the essence of the cherry blossom,
the essence of spring here in Japan.
No doubt it's been done before, but not by me.
And here is cherry blossom.
See, this is absolutely lovely. It's beautiful.
OK, let's give it a go.
It's a good job I put on my best socks
because I'm meeting the deputy headmistress,
Senko Ikenobo.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you.
I've chosen these stems. Yes.
So, please, any advice you can give me
in the spirit of ikebana would be very interesting.
OK. First of all, because you chose only these cherry blossoms... Yes.
..and only one kind... Yes. ..so I think it's very unique,
because when we arrange ikebana,
we usually pick up flowers and leaves
and we try to make a harmony between them.
But the reason...
I'm not sure the reason why you chose only one kind,
but it's really very...artistic.
I think you're being polite. I clearly failed
at the first hurdle... No, no. ..but let's push on, nevertheless.
And also the very important thing about ikebana
is we have to focus on each branch.
If possible, we have to check which angle is the best. Mm-hm.
This way or this way or like this or like that.
What do you think? Oh, it's you. OK, it's me.
Because it depends on the person.
Is elegance and sophistication important? Yes. Yes.
It's also important because, when we look at ikebana,
people feel the wind blowing.
Right. So, the wind blowing. Blowing. It's very important. OK.
So, you're trying to capture
the wind blowing through the branches... Yes.
..and capturing it at a sort of perfect moment. Yes.
It's a lot to ask, isn't it? It's that perfect moment. Oh, yes.
It's a very high ideal. Yes.
Can I start cutting? Yeah. Yeah, please.
Yeah, I mean, I would just take that out there.
Is that right? Yeah. Can I do that? Yes.
At least take that off to start with.
We could take that out.
Cut from this point. Yeah. This point.
I tried. Yeah.
Please be careful. Don't worry. I've used these before.
And for example, if you find it a little bit too flat,
looks too flat... Yes. ..you can bend. Oh.
Very soft tree. Right.
You have to be very, very careful. Yes.
And...
You just bend, for example, this branch.
You... Like a little bit up. OK.
I would say that was a little bit busy,
so we cut that off, like that.
You just bend like this.
OK, you just bend it without breaking it.
Yeah, without breaking. Yeah.
You have to be very careful. Careful.
You need a very high technique in bending,
because if you cut it all, it looks a little bit empty.
I have a suspicion that she doesn't approve.
Oh, yes, yes. No, no, I think you had better try bending.
OK, I better try bending it. Yeah, because cutting is easier,
but you had better use the technique for bending.
So, we're bending. Yeah.
I think take that.
I hope to stop cutting. I'm going to stop cutting.
Don't worry. I'm going to stop cutting.
And it's been so, so interesting, actually,
that I've learnt a lot.
So, thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you very much indeed.
And your ikebana arrangement - very good. Thank you.
She was being very polite,
but clearly, I was a profound disappointment.
But I enjoyed myself enormously,
although, like everything to do with Japanese gardens,
ikebana is so much more than first impressions may imply.
It is essentially the carefully modulated control of space, or ma,
and that captures a specific moment in time.
And you can see this everywhere you look
just as clearly as you can in a vase of flowers.
I've seen so much and crammed so much in
that I think I need to take a break.
Japanese culture is very different in lots of ways.
The more you learn, the more you realise.
The meticulous attention to detail
is as evident in their sushi as it is in their gardens,
and I'm struck just by how deliberate everything is.
Nothing is done by accident
and everything has reference points
that you really do need to know about
in order to fully appreciate them.
So, I'm going to go away, think about it,
but I shall come back.
Next time, amongst the autumn colours,
I will explore the many forms of stroll garden...
So, you should see the garden
as a scroll that you move along like that? Yes.
..and the ways the Japanese are bringing nature
to their concrete jungle...
Playing with this idea of the inside, the outside.
..with a few unexpected detours along the way.
This is not what you would expect to see in the middle of Tokyo.