garden

landscape
NOW AND ZEN
The Portland Japanese Garden continues its visionary path
STORY BY TOVAH MARTIN ■ PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHELSEA STICKEL
SOME SEEK OUT THE PORTLAND JAPANESE GARDEN AS
an oasis, it's true. For sure, Portland residents slip into the garden's
deep-green embrace to escape earthly cares. And absolutely, the layering
of deftly sculpted form and texture — of noble stone juxtaposed
against curvaceously sculpted branches — is meant to draw you away
from the mundane and material onto a higher plane. But retreat isn't
all this place is about.
The Portland Japanese Garden doesn't take the passive approach.
Instead, active and present is how the garden hopes to interact with
its public. Most notably, its newly appointed garden curator, Sadafumi
Uchiyama, adopts an invigoratingly engaged stance. The creation of the
garden curator position and Uchiyama's appointment in October 2008
was part of the process by the Portland Japanese Garden to fulfill a cohesive
vision for the garden. "Another name for my position," Uchiyama
likes to say, "is 'the vision keeper.'"
Part of what Uchiyama does is to define the garden and make certain
that its integrity remains intact. But it goes deeper than that. Uchiyama,
who has interacted with the garden since he moved to Portland in 1995,
strives to hone how the garden speaks to its public. And he's hoping that
the garden can communicate on a very down-to-earth level.
So, rather than the typical intangibles connected with a Zen sort of
space, Uchiyama talks in truisms. Though spirituality drips from every
86 GARDEN DESIGN APRIL 09
The Portland Japanese Garden offers visitors a range of venues to delve into
its meticulous craftsmanship, from the Strolling Pond Garden with its Moon
Bridge (above left), to the Flat Garden and its raked-sand "seascape" surrounded
by plantings that highlight the four seasons (above right).
bough in this 5.5-acre venue, discovering it is best done without too
much prompting. Thus Uchiyama doesn't dive deeply into the garden's
spiritual message when he speaks to visitors, and he skips suggestions
of how you should react to the five meticulously manicured spaces that
compose this landscape not far from Portland's more-concrete persona.
Instead, he shares informed and insightful observations of how nature
and plants interplay, and chronicles the duties of those who maintain
the garden, challenging visitors to be attentive to the surroundings.
Then he weaves that into the greater confluence of Japanese tradition
before letting you loose to explore the landscape personally. And
before you know it, you've found your own way to seeing the waves of
the ocean carved in a black pine and the promise of eternal life in the
trip of water over stone.
When he discusses the garden, Sada Uchiyama often begins with
the bears that were once a part of the zoo originally housed there,
and explains how their former den is now a part of the waterfall in
the Strolling Pond Garden. Which seems like a valid starting point to