WALK8 Japanese Garden, Cowden.6th March 2024

 A bit far afield for our joyful walk this week We were down near Bridge of Earn, taking Blue, the blind dog, back to his home and getting things ready for Sharon's sister and husband to come back from their holiday. We have often thought about visiting the Japanese Garden near Dollar, so today was to be the day!

We expected a serene and peaceful walk. The presence of a large bus full of very loud school children threatened to prevent our serenity. Inside the reception building, we spotted this. It did not immediately jump into my mind, but if even one of the screaming hordes noticed a sliver of joy, then it would be possible to believe that the garden had, indeed, planted a seed for tomorrow. Or, am I just a grumpy old man?

We didn't hang around and made for the garden immediately, to try and get ahead of the excitable children. We could glimpse the tranquillity beyond the trees and the bridge.

It really was quite tranquil and inviting.

The Garden is called Sha Raku En - the place of pleasure and delight. It certainly promised both of these things.

There was a pavilion off to one side of the water and this is where we headed first of all.

Inside the pavilion was a short film explaining the background to the garden and its design. There was also a display of little origami cranes. The artist Beverly McNeil was commissioned to create a work using 1000 origami cranes to symbolise the power of creativity and collaboration. The cranes had been folded by over 250 people locally (and beyond) and Beverly had created the piece using these individual pieces to make something that was much more than the sum of its parts. It was enchanting, especially the little side mobile, which fluttered gracefully in the breeze passing through the pavilion.

The theme of creativity and collaboration was an interesting choice. The garden had been designed and laid out from 1908 and it was said to be the most important Japanese Garden in the Western World. It was commissioned by Ella Christie, who was a remarkable woman, travelling throughout Asia at the turn of the 20th Century. It was during these travels that she was inspired to build her own garden. She engaged Taki Handi, who created the largest garden of its type ever to be designed and made by a woman. So there is huge creativity and collaboration behind the garden itself.

The pavilion is not the original building. Much of the garden was vandalised in 1963, by schoolchildren. They threw statues and lanterns into the pond and burnt some buildings including a boathouse that stood where the pavilion now sits.

Quite why anyone would want to destroy something like this is a mystery to me. I only hope that the children who visited today remember to believe in tomorrow.

The pond is artificial, and has clearly been created to sit within the wider landscape. This is described as a borrowed landscape and why wouldn't you?

You can cross the pond at a number of points and this zig-zag bridge (very similar to ones we saw in China) represents the fact that our journey through life is not a straight line, but you do get there in the end.

The arched bridge represents our final journey and is deliberately arched, so that you cannot immediately see the other side. You don't know where you are going.

There are memorials to some of the Japanese builders and gardeners involved in the project. The little shelter behind is Ella's sun room.

Sharon is not sitting under a giant toadstool, but under Ella's sunshade. I have to say it was not strictly necessary today.

At the far end of the pond are some small islands that you can get to via stepping stones. These are shown on the map as master and guest islands. Master islands are not supposed to be accessible, but admired from afar. Guest islands are accessible. They all seemed to be accessible, but perhaps I was not reading the symbolism and the landscaping correctly.

I wasn't alone in that.

Further round was a small waterfall, presumably referencing the water flowing from the Ochil Hills way beyond the garden.

Beyond the waterfall was what most of us might imagine a Japanese garden to look like - raked gravel beds and moss islands. Indeed, these dry gardens are very traditional. They usually represent water and islands. 

In this case, they are the water flowing from the Ochils and the circular patterns represent ripples in the water.

There is something quite calming and mesmeric about these. It seems to me to be about the regularity of the circle and the fact that someone has made these without leaving any trace that they stepped on the gravel to do that in the first place.

The whole garden had that overall feeling of peace, quiet and tranquillity, aided by the disappearance of the school children.

Outside the Japanese garden is an avenue of Lime trees, planted in 1937. These once adjoined two rows of cherry trees, but the last of these died in 2012. However, the cherry avenue has now been replanted, allowing visitors to experience blossom time for the future.

From the Japanese garden you can then walk in the Stewart Woodland, which belongs to the family who have followed on from Ella.

Before very long we found a Wishing Tree. A bit like a Clootie tree, but people had tied little tags, on which they had written wishes, to the branches of the trees.

The path wanders along the side of a burn.

There is even a Haiku beside the trail, with each line on a sign attached to three different trees.

In winter woodlands

Empty branches creak and groan

Spring will come again

They did ask if you could make your own, so I tried. This photo is out of sequence, but it shows that spring really is coming back.

Harking back to previous winters, Storm Arwen had made a bit of a mess of some of the woodland. Rather than leave headless stumps, they had turned them into a little village of fairy houses. What a clever thing to do?

That just left us one other bit of the garden to stroll around, so we decided to stop and have a spot of lunch in their little café. We both had a bowl of very good tomato and chilli soup and half a sandwich. I had Coronation chickpeas, which was really very good, indeed. Sharon had egg mayo, which she often does! 

After lunch, we walked around a little wood to the dam which held back the burn to create the pond.

We took a selfie! I hate selfies, especially when Sharon takes them with a 5 second delay on the phone. I find it impossible to smile for that long!

That's why, sometimes they look like this!

We walked back across the arched bridge.

This time, I noticed a detail we had missed the first time across. We must have become more mindful of our surroundings after exposure to the garden.

The edge wood had been secured to the deck using wooden plugs and a wooden strap. No metal involved - how fascinating.

Back across the zig-zag bridge and round again to the pavilion. 

Inside the pavilion we noted the instruction to breathe in the qualities of the garden, to slow down and enjoy the moment. I feel sure that we did that. We found the whole thing enchanting, peaceful and relaxing. Over 2 miles of walking never felt so good!