This Japanese Zen Garden Planter Idea Is the Easiest Way to Create a Calm, Peaceful Corner on Your Patio
Discover how to create a Japanese zen planter for peace and tranquillity
Prized for their calming and inspiring qualities, Japanese zen gardens are ideal if you are looking for inspiration on how to add a sense of verdant tranquillity to any outdoor space. However, for many of us in urban environments, space is often at a premium and limited to a small courtyard or balcony.
To find out how to bring a pocket of peace to your patio, I spoke with experts in their fields to discover how you can create a tiny zen garden in even the smallest of spaces.
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The Benefits of a Japanese Zen Garden Planter
Japanese zen gardens are designed to encourage viewers to stop, slow down, and connect with nature. Something, I believe, that is becoming more important in a world that seems increasingly preoccupied by screens and technology.
With inner-city environments often lacking green outdoor spaces, adding a Japanese zen garden planter to even the smallest courtyard or patio can help turn it into a place of peace and respite from the hustle and bustle of modern-day life.
Jessica Mercer, Senior Content Marketing Coordinator and plant expert at Plant Addicts, suggests that ‘even a small Japanese garden planter can give a tight outdoor space a calmer focal point.
'On a balcony or patio, it adds structure and texture without needing much color or constant upkeep.’
Jessica Mercer, PhD, is the Senior Content Marketing Coordinator for Plant Addicts. As a 'plant collector', Jessica enjoys growing many different plants and learning about the best cultural practices for each. Writing for Plant Addicts is a real joy for her, as she can use her science background to research interesting plant topics. She carefully considers how to best present the information to other gardeners, with a focus on sustainability and the environment.
Containers for a Japanese Zen Garden Planter
When choosing containers and pots for a Japanese Zen planter, it can be hard to know where to start. With options ranging in size, color, material and style, you will want to select those that will not only proportionally suit your outside space but also complement your chosen plant combinations.
Hugo Torii, Garden Curator of Portland Japanese Garden and Director of the Japanese Garden Training Center, advises that ‘A brightly colored pot can be quite a distraction when brought back into the garden. When I worked with homeowners in Japan, I would often recommend unglazed shigaraki plant pots. They are earthy and blend in the garden scenery.’
Hugo continues, ‘Plant pots are convenient to move around, so when the season comes to show its best, we can move them where they’re more visible. For example, if the plants are flowering, we can use them as a welcoming scene at an entrance. In this sense, movable size pots are the ones I recommend.
'That said, I love big pots as well. The bigger ones, like kame, can hold water plants and are also commonly found in gardens with pet fish inside.’
For any container, adequate drainage holes are essential to allow excess water to drain away. This is especially important for specimens that require a well-drained soil, such as Japanese maples, which will not survive in waterlogged soil.
For a low, round planter, this Emissary round teal ceramic available from Lowes would be ideal for a small, shallow-rooted acer. Alternatively, the modern, clean lines of the Veradek Kona Planter available from Target, would be ideal for supporting a striking bamboo and providing some height.
Hugo Torii is Garden Curator at Portland Japanese Garden, where he oversees a team of gardeners and helps to keep the space true to its original intent and design, while also allowing it to grow and evolve.
Choosing the Right Soil
When choosing soil for your Japanese zen garden planter, the key is to ensure you provide the right substrate to support the plants you intend to grow.
Jessica advises, ‘Use a potting mix that drains well, since pea gravel or small stones are often used as a decorative top layer and will slow evaporation. Start with a quality potting mix and add pine bark fines and pumice/perlite so the roots get oxygen and the container doesn’t stay soggy.
'If you’re planting something woody like a small maple, select a mix with less compost and more bark/mineral material to reduce the chance of waterlogging around the roots.’
Used to aid soil drainage and aeration, perlite is often added to potting mixes. However, you can also purchase Sta-Green organic perlite from Lowes to add and further increase a compost's drainage properties, or for when making your own potting compost.
Plants for a Japanese Zen Planter
With such an alluringly wide choice of plants available, it can be hard to choose and tempting to try to combine too many different plants, which goes against the less-is-more design concept.
If you are concerned that a Japanese zen planter must contain only Japanese plants, you do not need to worry. Hugo explains, ‘Working with native plants that are accustomed to the environment you’re living in is ideal. Sometimes people think that to have a Japanese garden of any size, you must get plants that are Japanese in origin, but that is not true.
'It is more about the form they are given and how they provide balance within an entire field of vision. Among the plants that you might get, ones that are beautiful for their simplicity might be ideal, such as moss, ferns, and pines.’
When deciding on what to plant, Jessica suggests, ‘Keep the plant list short and focus on contrast. Select one upright element and one mounding/soft element, and use stone and gravel to tie them together.
'A dwarf Japanese maple can be the main plant if you have enough light. For a shadier spot, dwarf mondo grass or a small, low evergreen, like dwarf yew or boxwood, can carry the look. Moss is lovely, but I only recommend it if the spot stays consistently shaded and moist, otherwise it dries out and looks patchy.’
Adored for their fall color, Japanese maples are a popular choice. Considered hardy in USDA zones 5 and above, the weeping Acer palmatum 'Crimson Queen', available on Amazon, produces crimson-red foliage that turns red-orange in the fall and reaches a mature height of 10 feet.
For a hardy evergreen with a mounding habit and dark green needles, the Dwarf Mugo Pine available from Lowes, is suitable for growing in USDA zone 3 to 9.
Water and Gravel
In a Japanese Zen garden, gravel and sand are often used to symbolize water ripples, such as the ocean or a river. Generally, they are a pale color to reflect light and the practice of raking gravel or sand can be meditative, the flowing lines creating a sense of tranquillity.
Even if you do not have any outdoor space, there are indoor gardens available, such as this Island Falls home Zen Garden kit from Amazon.
Water in a Japanese garden, on the other hand, can represent, among other things, purity, renewal, and the passing of time.
Many of us do not have space for a pond but can accommodate a stone basin or bowl filled with water, which will reflect the passing clouds above and seasons as they change.
Suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, you can purchase this ARBORA 21" Santorini Bowl from Amazon.
For those limited to indoor growing, houseplants are ideal for adding interest and life to a home, and some are even reported to help reduce stress and anxiety.
However, indoor plants can be fussy about their growing conditions and, if not given the right requirements, can rapidly decline. If you are new to house plants, these best indoor plants for any room will help you choose the right specimen to thrive in your chosen environment.
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