Our New Garden Website

[dvus]

Hi all.
We would like to invite everyone to our new personal website showing our garden "Ame" from the start of construction to its current state, two years on.

http://ame-japanese-garden.webs.com

[Steve]

Very nice!!!

[dvus]

Cheers Steve.
The garden is in its infantcy and although we have done quite a lot of planting we feel the main ingreedient to still be added is time... plants and trees need to grow!

[Jando]

It was fun watching the development of your garden through your photos.  And I love the name you chose for the garden.  It is amazing the garden is only two years old.  It must be all that rain.  I like the contemporary feel of your stream, very creative.

Cheers June

[don]

I always thought it was fun that the word for rain was so close to the word for candy.  I would instantly develop this picture of  raining candy anytime someone would mention rain!  Perhaps it is like that in your garden?

[kobold]

Thank you for sharing your photos and your garden. Excellent work.

Andrea

[dvus]

Hi June.
Thanks for your kind comments. The “stream” is somewhat contemporary in style due to it being made from three sections of plastic gutter. We plan to replace this with a more natural looking stream next year.

Thanks for your comments also Andrea.
Glad you like the website.

Yes Don, language can be confusing, no more so than true English (were, we’re, wear, ware and where). There are many words for rain in Japanese, each differing according to intensity, duration, and season. According to one theory, phenomena that play an important role in any given society and culture are often subdivided into various types and are described using a wide variety of terms. Other examples are the rich vocabulary of the Inuit people for snow and the varied Arab terminologies for camels.
Just a few examples of Japanese words for rain are:

BY INTENSITY
Ooame  (big, rain) When the rain is so heavy that flooding and other damage may result.

By SEASON
Harusame (spring, rain) Gently falling, fine rain during the warm days of spring.

BY DURATION
Naga-ame (long-rain) Such as that of the early summer ( tsuyu ) and autumn seasons, that falls continuously for days on end.

Here in Lancashire, England we also have many words for different types of rain although many are not suitable for inclusion on this forum!
Just out of interest, according to a survey conducted in 2003, Japanese own an average of 7 umbrellas per person and annual demand for umbrellas was 115 million.

Regards to everyone - Vic

[kobold]

English language is rich with words for rain too.  I add one more " liquid sunshine " as we call it here in Vancouver. We have plenty of it!

Andrea

[dvus]

We do seem to get our fair share of rain here in Horwich just west of Bolton. We are on the edges of the west pennine moors which all the dark clouds bump into LOL. Our garden has only 9 inches of soil then it's solid clay so it does stay somewhat moist. We ALWAYS dig holes twice the required size when planting and fill up with peat although here in the UK it's no longer "PC".

[kobold]

Looks like our gardens have similar characteristics, we have the same challenge. The soil is the same, but  we are on a steep slope.  Three huge conifers: one of each,  cedar, Douglas-fir and cedrus Atlantica. They suck up all the moisture on the top part, we have to water there, but  the lower part is very wet.
 
Why it is not "PC" to use peatmoss? It isn't "green" to remove it from the bog? I don't know what I could do without it. But I see the point!

Andrea

[dvus]

Hi Andrea
Sorry for the delay in responding back... work can get in the way of hobbies would'nt you agree.
Our garden also slopes and we have yet to start on our small front garden (24x10ft) which has a Scots Pine (30ft tall) in the middle of it. The tree takes all the water and all the light and pays us back for this by dropping needles everywhere! We are not too sure what to do with the space under the tree and will get around to opening a seperate topic for users suggestion when I get the chance.
In the UK the use of peat and peat based compost is discouraged due to experts telling us that our peat mosses (fields) and boggs are running out.
Vic