We are now getting a much closer look at quality,” with more widely available books and expertise. But gradually, they started to design more original and authentic gardens. “copied the stone lanterns, water basins and stepping stones. Uchiyama is a third-generation Japanese gardener from southern Japan.Īt first, he says, Japanese gardens in the U.S. Japanese garden design in this country has moved well beyond stereotypical features like lanterns and imported Japanese cherries and maples, says Sadafumi Uchiyama, chief curator of the Portland, Oregon, Japanese Garden and director of the International Japanese Garden Training Center there. “That aesthetic is definitely catching on.” Gardens are enclosed and surround the house, so it’s as if your living space extends out much further,” says Asher Browne of Oakland, New Jersey, who trained in Kyoto, Japan, and now creates Japanese-inspired gardens for clients in the United States. There are large views of the garden, and more unobstructed views. “One reason that gardens are so successful in Japan is that the house-garden relationship is set up to be so integrated. Today they have evolved, and continue to inspire garden design at a time when many people are trying to forge a closer connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. at an 1893 world exposition in Chicago, became a sought-after feature in Gilded Age estates, and were later adapted to open-plan modernist homes. Japanese-style gardens first caught the public imagination in the U.S.