Japanese Gardens Tour

On Wednesday for our February meeting we had a special tour down to the Japanese Gardens in Van Nuys. I'm going to post some of the pictures from the tour. It was a very interesting tour and the weather even behaved itself!!

"The Japanese Garden Suiho En the garden of water and fragrance is a 6½ acre authentic Japanese garden fashioned after “stroll gardens” constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries for Japanese Feudal lords. Our facility is unique in that it incorporates three classical designs: a dry karensansui, a wet garden with promenade chisen, and an authentic tea ceremony garden incorporating a 4.5 tatami mat tea room."

The gardens came into being when the City of Los Angeles had to built a new Water Treatment Plant. The gardens are on the property of the The Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.

Photo by Pat Carlson

This is an example of the dry gardening with rocks and gravel and plants.

(Photo by PC)

One of the several styles of stone lanterns in the garden. This is called the Wet Heron Lantern. The top is the bird's wings covering itself in the rain.

One thing the guide told us that in Japanese gardens they are going mainly for colors of green with some flowers mixed in. There is always something blooming in the gardens.


One of the several kinds of bridges. I think this is a viewing bridge but I might be wrong. One thing I didn't do is get a group picture!! You will have to do with a couple candid pictures of the group. Someone remind me next time we go somewhere!!! Our very good guide is in the red in the middle of the bridge. She told us lots and lots of things about the gardens.

Another type of lantern. This is a Snow Viewing Lantern. For the life of me I can't remember the story behind the name other than the beauty of the snow. If you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see the Pine next to the lantern has bamboo sticks and wires with weights to shape it. All the pine trees in the garden are being trained in this fashion. I don't know how long the wires and sticks will have to be on the trees. They were just put on in the last year.

The Tea house and Shoin Building. The Tea house is a small part of this building. Shoin was the residential dwelling developed for aristocrats, upper class monks and samurai during the 14th and 15th centuries. The exterior of this building is authentically shoin style, but the interior has been modified to provide a place for meetings and special events. This room offers a panoramic view of the lake.

This is the waterfall where the water from the water treatment plant enters the gardens.

Crane Island

Photo by PC

Great Blue Heron

Lots of birds on the land and fish in the lake.

Another of the group. Pat is the background taking that great picture of the heron!

Photo by PC

One of the many islands in the lake.

Taken from the Shoin House. The Shoin Screens on the windows were used to frame the views for guests. I thought this view was good enough for the best guest!!

Iris growing in the lake. They had several large beds of these growing on the edges of the lake.

Looking across the lake.

So we don't forget why we have this wonderful garden we have the pictures of the Water Treatment plant. Our guide gave us a great overview of how the sewage is treated and what happens to it. Very interesting.

Holding tanks

Photo by PC

Overview of the gardens looking down from the treatment plant.

They also have a small Bonsai garden area.

After the tour several of us went to the park next door and had a picnic lunch.

Good Times!!! Thanks Sherry for setting this tour up. I am looking forward to the next tour in April to the Adamson House in Malibu.