Asian, By Design : Japanese Design Elements Are Starting to Take Root in More and More O.C. Yards

A rock waterfall flows over 2-ton boulders and splashes into a 7,500-gallon pond filled with more than 100 koi.

The pond, edged by granite rock and flat black pebbles, undulates under a redwood bridge that is part of a deck leading into the house. Surrounding the pond are Japanese black pines, five-point pine trees, gardenias, night-blooming jasmine, scheffleras, azaleas, impatiens and rabbit’s foot ferns.

“When I come home, it’s like I’m safe,” says real estate developer and builder Kevin Coleman of the Japanese-style landscape in his Costa Mesa front yard. “I come from the stress of my business and I know I can sit out there and just immerse myself in the tranquility of the sound of the waterfall and watch the fish swim around. It’s a calming effect.”

The goal of Japanese landscaping is to transform something man-made into something that re-creates the peacefulness experienced when surrounded by nature.

While few people in Orange County have yards that purists would called “Japanese gardens,” many homeowners such as Coleman and his wife, Susan, have opted for landscaping that includes Japanese design elements.

The result is a hybrid, what could be called Japanese-style landscaping, according to Hiroyuki Kawachi, president of Japan Landscaping Inc. in Westminster. He says about 30% of his customers want Japanese-style landscaping that adapt design principles to fit Southern California’s climate.

Kinya Hira, president of Hira Landscape Construction in Buena Park, says most of the landscapes he designs and installs have at least some Japanese-style elements. He calls this approach “an Oriental-style garden.”

Hira, a graduate in landscape architecture from Tokyo Horticulture University, says the Japanese “sense of beauty is a little bit different from the United States, but Americans understand the Japanese sense of beauty.”

The landscaping he created for the Colemans, for example, originally followed the Japanese style of a mainly green color palette. However, the Colemans later added flowers because they wanted more color. The small lawn in the Colemans’ front yard is definitely not Japanese-style, but it does have planters with sago palms, rocks and a pine tree.

It takes a special art to create a Japanese garden.

Kevin Coleman recalls how it took five men to set the stones for his landscaping. Hira had each of the stones wrestled around and rotated until he found just the right positioning.

The sounds and smells of a Japanese garden are important too.

Even a little trickle of water provides a pleasing, soothing sound. Adding a gardenia or a night-blooming jasmine can give a garden fragrance.

Barbara Shon of Huntington Beach says the waterfall is her favorite item in her Japanese-style garden.

“Just the sound of it is very peaceful,” she says.

Shon says she and her husband like to sit on their patio in the evening, turn the spotlights on and enjoy the fish and the waterfall.

Barbara Light of Los Alamitos also finds her Japanese landscape soothing.

“A few minutes in the back yard is very, very restful,” she says.

Why did the Lights want this style of landscaping?

John Light, who is now a manager for Pepsico, was once stationed in Japan when he was a Marine.

“He has a lot of fondness for Japan,” his wife says. “He really designed part of this.”

Carol Yamashiro, a former physical therapist, and her anesthesiologist husband, Alan, wanted some Japanese landscape design elements for their Country French home in San Juan Capistrano.

The focal point of the large back yard is a swimming pool surrounded by rocks and fed by a waterfall composed of Ortega rock. This part of the yard features Japanese-style landscaping, with black pines, sago palms, California pepper trees, a weeping cherry tree, azaleas, petunias and a variety of green shrubs.

Wind-swept trees sprout from the rocks, and the pool’s interior is finished with a special gunite spray mixed with pebbles, creating the look of a natural pond. The adjoining spa is lined with flagstone.

Barbara and John Shon’s desire for a koi pond was the main reason they ended up with Japanese-style landscaping for their Huntington Beach back yard. After some searching, John Shon hired Hira to design Japanese-style landscaping--with black pines, junipers and podocarpus--to complement a patio and a 16-by-8-foot pond. Gravel is used as a ground cover, and in some places a low-growing green ground cover thrives on top of it.

William and Barbara Light of Los Alamitos also sought the soothing nature of a Japanese landscape. Their back-yard features an area with a Japanese tea garden created by Kawachi. This includes a hand-carved stone lantern, sitting on a bed of flat black pebbles, and a short bamboo pipe, which trickles water into a rock water basin, then irrigates nearby plants. Heavenly bamboo, a black pine and a gardenia are planted around the lantern.

The tea garden, according to Kawachi, is part of the Japanese tea ceremony. Before going into a tea room, guests symbolically wash their hands in a water basin.

There’s also a waterfall that pours into a spa with stone around the perimeter, another stone lantern, pygmy palms, jasmine and cape honeysuckle.

Gravel is used as a ground cover, and the stepping stones are flagstone, to blend with the concrete and flagstone patio. There is a 3-inch drainage pipe installed under the rock and gravel to prevent standing water.

Gravel and rock add contour and texture to Japanese landscapes, but they can also be symbolic, according to Kawachi. Gravel may be used to symbolize an ocean or a river, he says. And pebbles along the edge may symbolize a beach.

As for water use, “most of the plants that we use in the Japanese garden do not require too much water . . . but at the same time, they would take much more water than a cactus,” according to Kawachi. He also says that most of the plants used are deep-rooted, which makes them more drought-tolerant.

Hira says that while Japanese landscapes are thirstier than ones with California native plants, they require considerably less water than typical California yards with expanses of lawns.

And what about the ponds and waterfalls? All of these have recirculation systems so that water is filtered and reused. It’s also important to keep in mind that the waterfalls are only turned on occasionally. While some water is lost by evaporation, most is retained. Susan Coleman, for instance, says that their water usage is down this year from last year, because she is careful about other water use.

The Lights’ landscaping cost more than $25,000, including the spa.

Plants in a Japanese garden can be expensive. Many, such as the black pine and junipers, have had a bonsai treatment over many years, training them to a particular shape and size. Black pines can start at several hundred dollars.

Japanese stone lanterns can also be expensive. The ones in the Lights’ yard were $1,000 and $1,500.

The Colemans’ front yard was about $30,000, and the Yamashiro’s landscaping was between $150,000 and $250,000, according to Carol Yamashiro.

And while Barbara Light loves her yard, she has had a maintenance problem.

“If anybody wants to have a landscape like this, they’re going to have to take care of it,” she says. “This is low-maintenance, but it requires selective pruning.”

She says they have had five gardening services in the last four years. The problem was, she says, that the gardeners just didn’t understand what was needed. The yard was allowed to become a bit overgrown in spots and some plants were killed by the wrong fertilizer. She plans some replanting this summer.

They have had success, however, finding someone to maintain and trim the bonsai trees. It’s “almost like they’re trimming it needle for needle. It’s that precise,” she says.