I’ve visited Eikando twice, once in maple season. While the garden is ignored by a popular English-language garden guide, I was impressed by the garden’s ability to disperse a large number of people comfortably, and by the immaculate maintenance. Two young gardeners going over a patch of moss near the street stick in my mind. Of course I’ve got a not-very-good photo of the stone sombrero.

I got a lesson in maintenance from a late 19th century villa to the south, whose garden designed (I think) by Ogawa Jihei was open to the public during restoration. Shrubs had been removed or very severely pruned, a pond was dug up, and the place generally looked as though it had suffered some calamity. But (as was pointed out by an enthusiastic expert) the stonework was spectacular and visible in all its glory.

You can’t just sit back and watch the plants grow, maybe whacking them a bit when they start to block a path. A garden needs constant attention, and sometimes major rethinking or replacement of elements past their prime or shaded by a growing tree.

I’ve been providing a bit of free labor to a modest public garden, Heathcote in Fort Pierce, Florida. For a while, maintenance fell far behind and a habit had taken hold of fearing to prune or move plants. After two years of vigorous activity the garden is still nothing memorable, but it is vastly improved. About the only species in common with Kyoto would be Rhapis palms, Aspidistra plants, and a few azaleas. The garden lacks southern magnolia (surprisingly popular in Japan) and crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia). The hybrid crape myrtles grown in the US are probably unlike the Japanese native lagerstroemias that I’ve seen in Kyoto.