The world’s first gardens may well have been made of coral, natural clusters of underwater beauty that could be glimpsed through the glass of the water. Perfectly tone and color coordinated and formed, they were refined to a degree that may have suggested the presence of the divine. Those living in the coral islands of Okinawa have been well placed to observe these marine gardens, learn from them and requisition their treasures.
Ishigaki Island’s Miyara Dunchi, located down one of the lanes of the old quarter of the port town, is a samurai-style villa. Built in 1819 by the magistrate for the Yaeyamas, Miyara Peichin Toen, it is the oldest surviving such building in Okinawa. The worn, salt-encrusted wood along the verandah looks out onto a dry landscape arrangement that seems to owe more to China than Japan.
A fondness for stones, the sharp, spiny rocks of their own coral islands, so different from the smooth, moss-covered variety found in Japanese gardens elsewhere, typifies this and many other Okinawan gardens. If rocks represent mountains, in Okinawa they also evoke coastal cliffs and offshore formations. Never far from the sea, these stone arrangements are doubtless modified versions of the complex, interlocking rock piles, full of scooped surfaces and cavities, found in classic Chinese gardens. The variegated greens of the garden, seen in clumps of aspidistra and large, healthy-looking cycads, are complemented by the red and yellow flowers of hibiscus, creating a truly Okinawan garden flavor.
Smaller stones and plants such as aspidistra, that do well in the subtropics, differentiate Okinawan gardens from their mainland counterparts.
Aesthetically pleasing within their very different sub-tropical island settings, Okinawan walls like this one on the neigh-boring island of Taketomi-jima are living structures.
The variegated greens seen in clumps of aspidistra and large, healthy-looking cycads blend with coral rocks suggestive of Chinese gardens, with their fabulist piles of energizing stones full of blowholes, scooped surfaces, cavities and hollows.