Japanese Garden Design

If you've grown a container garden or two but want to advance your gardening and decorating skills, Japanese garden design is the way to go. This ancient form of garden design was created to promote peace and tranquility. You can be relaxing in your own paradise in no time by including these 5 key ingredients in your garden.

Moss. Adding plants like tufted moss to your garden makes the space look like a retreat, and allows you to focus on relaxing and renewing your strength. You can put the moss at the entryway and throughout the sides of the garden for a welcoming but secluded feel.

Stone lantern. A Japanese stone lantern will make a space look mysterious and alluring. You may even want to put a few hanging baskets around the lantern to bring more attention to the plants. A container herb garden would look nice around the lantern as well. The lantern not only helps to conserve energy, but gives your Japanese garden design a warm, exotic look.

'Planting' other gardens. Even though your container garden or organic seed plants may be the focus of your garden, you can also include other gardens in the scenery to make your Japanese garden design complete. A sand garden is great if you've planting things like cactus or bonsai trees and a Zen stone garden goes well with any plants in your garden. These gardens offer special places within your new space for reflection and meditation.

A tea house. This can be a small house or building within your garden where you can go to spend time alone or to interact with loved ones in a peaceful environment. The windows in your tea house should be facing other peaceful scenes in the garden, such as the Japanese lantern or the Zen rock garden, so that even while you are inside you can experience the tranquility of the entire garden. You can even bring some of your container plants into the teahouse-things like lavender flowers and aloe vera plants will add to the atmosphere nicely and you can use these plants for medicinal purposes as well.

A bamboo fountain. A well crafted high quality bamboo fountain brings the air of tranquility to your garden unlike anything else. The soothing sounds of water in combination with beautiful bamboo makes your Japanese garden design complete.