Jando San,
Thanks for your comments; my wife has done well to keep the garden going while I am out on the final tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Claire and I have been to Kyoto in early spring, specifically to visit Tsubo-Niwa. We got really lucky as we not only went to a load of places I earmarked from Mizuno's books ..Small Places and Town Houses (think thats the names). Then it got crazy, we got invited to private Kimono makers and so on by chance. The Samurai Gardens down in Satsuma.
Fortunately Claire's father has a large Koi pond, so we have sent Koi that way already and when we have a family Inshalla we will try and emulate a large river/koi pond piece we saw in Rokashu Cafe, Kyoto to get our big guys back!
Ill try and send some of our holiday snaps FYI.
If you have any garden shots i'd love to see them, it will be good morale out here!
All the best and glad to have chatted!
Johnny