ZEN Gardens; transform your garden into a zen paradise.

After a long day of hard work, sometimes all you really want to do is relax and unwind. With the summer in full swing, your eyes tend to wander out of the windows and into your garden. You don’t have the time to take on some serious gardening work to make it look nicer; so what can you do? It’s simple. Put together your very own ZEN Garden. 

What are ZEN Gardens?

ZEN gardens (aka karesansui)have a very minimalistic approach to landscaping. It tends to be a dry landscape filled with natural elements of sand, gravel, rock and wood with limited foliage to care for. It also tends to be filled with man-made components, such as bridges, lanterns, statues and very almost always: an inviting sitting area.  ZEN gardens are tailored to the space available and of course your own tastes and style. Some have very little foliage, others are packed with it. Read below how to design one yourself!

How to design a Zen garden

Planning and researching ornaments is the key to the beautiful nature of the garden. Because ZEN Gardens are minimalistic in style, you want to make sure that you have an idea of the end result before you commit to excess purchasing. Make a list of ideas or a brainstorm to think about all the attributes you want to include.

Decide on the location

Will you turn your whole backyard into a Zen space, or just a part of it?  Will it span the full length or occupy a little out-of-the-way corner?  Which direction will the sitting area be facing, and what can you see? 

Follow the guiding principles

Even established garden designers still follow a set of guiding principles when designing the garden. ZEN gardens have a few rules, and although there are many books on this topic we will keep it as simple as possible. ZEN Gardens are not symmetrical and are designed to be viewed from different angles, revealing different elements as the person focuses their gaze in one spot. Like unrolling a scroll of painted landscapes. 

Miniaturisation

ZEN Garden is focused on an idealised view of nature, using small and large stones and specific trees to recreate landscapes.

Keep the ground clean

Pebbles,  Gravel and Soil are an ideal way to fill in the ground floor. Not only does it stop unwanted plants and weeds from growing, but it provides an excellent opportunity to grab a rake and create some interesting, ZEN patterns on the ground

Ornaments

Without a doubt, it’s the ornaments that really bring the ZEN garden to the next level.  You can easily enhance the ZEN with something like a 3 Piece Dragon,  Wizard Statue, or a Japanese Pagoda Lantern.

The beauty of ZEN garden ornaments is their ability to capture attention. These statues are full of little details that will keep yourself, your family and your guests admiring it for hours on end.  You can find more garden ornaments in our shop, here.