Design principles
The ideas we design from
These come from Japanese gardens. We use them as ways of looking at your yard, not as rules, and we explain each one in plain words.
Ma, the space between
Ma is the pause between things. In a yard it is the open gravel between a boulder and a maple, or the bare wall behind a single branch. We spend as much time deciding what to leave empty as what to plant, and we explain it with a drawing before anything is built.
Miegakure, hide and reveal
From the back door most gardens show everything in one look. Miegakure holds something back: a screen of bamboo, a turn in the path, a shrub in front of the water. The yard feels larger because you walk it. We plan the walk first, then the planting.
Shakkei, borrowed scenery
Portland yards are full of good views that belong to someone else: a tall fir, a roofline, a hill. We stand at the places you sit, find the view worth keeping and the one worth hiding, and shape the planting so the first is framed and the second disappears.
Fukinsei, uneven balance
A matched pair of anything reads as a decision someone made once and repeated. An uneven group reads as something that happened. We set stones in groups of odd numbers, vary their size and tilt, and leave one side heavier than the other on purpose.
Wabi-sabi, beauty in age
Our wet climate is on your side here. Moss colonizes shaded stone, cedar goes silver, bronze darkens. We choose materials that take that well, and we tell you plainly which ones will not, so you are not surprised by a garden that keeps changing.
Shizen, natural but never wild
Shizen is the hardest to build. A pruned pine, a stream bed, a hillside of stones: each is arranged, and none should show the arranging. It takes many small cuts and a lot of looking, which is why the same people who design the garden do the pruning.
Next step
See what these ideas do to your yard
A visit is the quickest way to find out. We walk it with you and show where each one would go.