To enter the gardens at Chiran, a subtropical town of tea plantations, old wooden samurai villas, volcanic hills and shallow valleys on the southernmost tip of Okinawa is to enjoy a world of small refinements.
In reward for their good services, Chiran’s rulers were promoted to membership of the samurai class. Travelling to Kyoto, they were able to view some of the country’s finest examples of garden design. On their return home, they hired gardeners to create landscapes that would match the natural surroundings of their own village.
All seven of the miniature Edo period gardens at Chiran share the common feature of having borrowed scenery, with mountains, forests, hills, tiled roofs, even the top of a stone lantern, co-opted as part of the garden. Each garden is named after the head of the family who lived in the house.
The Keiichiro Saigo garden looks simple, most of its landscaping in one corner of the yard in front of the house. On closer examination, however, one can see how complex it is. Rocks are carefully angled, plants and miniature trees are beautifully arranged. The garden evolves into something like the landscape of a Chinese ink-wash painting. A few steps across the lane is the peaceful Katumi Hirayama garden, with its old lanterns and Buddhist stones.
In the Ryoichi Hirayama garden, rocks are completely absent. Instead, a wide area of azalea shrubbery represents mountains. The contrast between the different shades of green in the color of the azaleas, the hedge and the emerald hills on the horizon, is a very effective technique. The tops of hedges have been clipped into angles to match the outline of the hills.
Japanese bellflowers blooming in one of Chiran’s Edo period gardens.
The stone walls of the samurai residences at Chiran are composed with the same precision as the gardens.
A wonderfully massed and contoured area of topiary, suggestive of the undulating hills that surround Chiran.