Oriental gardens and desert landscapes do not go together in most folks minds, but it can be done. Instead of using non-native plants and pouring on tons of water look to the basic concepts of Oriental gardens and then apply those concepts.

Oriental gardens focus on creating a harmonious and pleasing space where your garden space is in harmony with nature. This can certainly be done in a desert environment.

A Vast Subject

On a personal note, I began studying Oriental gardens and their design back in high school when I came across a book about Feng Shui. Like most topics on this earth, the more you know, the more there is to know about it. You can always dive deeper. Here’s a short introduction to get you started.

Oriental gardening is a vast topic. The Orient is a vast place, home to people of many different cultures. Long centuries of change and development of garden concepts, as well as different schools of thought, have lead to a massive number of ideas for Oriental gardens. To start our study of Oriental gardens, it is best to examine the common underlying principles of Oriental garden design. You most likely already know this concept.

Dual Forces & Cyclical Nature

Everything has dual forces. Creation needs destruction. Death makes way for new life. Everything is part of a single continuous, ongoing cycle. Change is the only constant. Gardens created with this Eastern mindset are very different from most Western or European gardens.

Different Traditions

Traditional European gardens are admired for their formal beauty. They are gauged by their careful geometries. These Western gardens celebrate the effort to impose rational precision on the chaotic forces of nature. Extensive time and money may be spent to maintain the illusion of control.

Eastern gardens are no less contrived than Western ones. Time and effort are spent, but the garden is maintained so as to disguise the human effort involved. Oriental gardens are meant to reproduce and symbolize the rhythms and patterns of the natural world. The balance seen in an Oriental garden is the balance of nature, which is never geometrically precise.

Basis of Oriental Gardening

Five Oriental Elements

Balance in an Oriental garden is achieved in part through balanced usage of the five elements; water, wood, fire earth, and metal. These are different from the Greek five elements of water, fire, earth, air, and ether. In both cases the humans creating these elemental distinctions have five fingers, so I guess five is a tidy number of things to keep track of.

Water

Water is a force of change. It flows, meanders, creates waves, and wears tall mountains into to sand.

Water can be real or representational in the garden. It doesn’t have to physically be water. Water can be a water feature and include a stream, waterfall, lake, and even islands planted to look like they are far off in the distance. Or water can be represented by a flowing curve of gravel or stone. Plantings can be water-like, with curving borders.

Attention though. Too much water can feel unsettling or even threatening, as can a rolling stormy sea or expanses of deep dark water.

Balance water with metal and wood. This is why you often see bridges over water features. The arch of a curving bridge over a water feature brings harmony because the downward curving arch is a metal symbol.

The colors of water focus on deep still pools of water ans are darker ones: black and other dark colours such as deep purple, or dark gray. The purple flowered verbena groundcover could be considered a watery element in the garden. Balance this water form with light silvery gray (metal) colored shrub such as the woolly butterfly bush (Buddleja).  Add the columnar form of a barrel cactus for wood energy.

Wood

Plants grow and wood symbolizes growth and expansion. Wood is strong, yet flexible. All growing things could be said to possess wood energy. In the Oriental garden, wood energy is usually represented by columnar plants and wooden adornments. Wooden fences, trellis, or garden furniture add wood energy to the garden, as do all the green plants.

The colors of wood are green and blue, perhaps because leafy trees reach for the blue sky. Balance wood with fire and water.

In the Southwest, the ideal representation of wood energy is the Arizona State Wildflower, the saguaro. Such a strong feature should be balanced with both fire and water. A water-like cascading mound of groundcover at its feet can bring in the force of water, and a touch of red flowers in fire color can help.

Fire

Hot and bright, inconstant motion upward in jagged peaks.  Fire is not restful.  But some unrest is necessary so that we may know rest when we find it. Fire is necessary for warmth and light, and life as we know it.

Wood and earth energies cool and balance fire. Red is the fire color, and red-orange.

One desert plant bursting with fiery upward movement is the ocotillo. It even features flame colored flowers in season. The flame nature of ocotillo can be cooled and balanced with a backdrop of earth force wall such as the walls of the home.

The fire of the ocotillo could be balanced with some wood energy, like a cluster of bright green shrubs at its base such as Aloysia. For a groundcover select a cooling lavender colored (water) verbena over a hot, bright, red (fire) lantana.

Earth

Water and fire dance and move, but earth is the force of stability.  Earth can be represented by stone.  Large, rough, natural stones, set firmly in the ground.  These hard stones hold movement, direction, and centuries of accumulated time.  The size of the space dictates the size of the stones needed.  More about boulders in the garden. 

Earth is represented by the home itself as part of the garden. Indeed, any rectilinear feature represents the force of earth. Flat topped walls or fences, arbors, benches, planters, even straight-edged lawns and patios carry the earth force.

Balance the massive forces of earth stability of a home and walled garden with the instability of softly naturally shaped plants. In general balance earth with fire and metal energies.

The colors of earth are brown, yellow, and golden orange.

Metal

Metal is a dense, inward moving energy. Some moving inward in life is
necessary to help us marshal our resources and collect our energy. That said, too much metal energy can feel oppressive or even lifeless.

White and silver are the colors of metal. Lighten and balance metal energy with earth and water.

Texas ranger, with its silvery foliage, would be a metal force in the garden. A line of them, flanking the path to your front door could be excessive and depressive. That rigid row of Texas ranger could be better balanced by planting it a curve, a meandering in a water-like way, not a inflexible metal line.

Balance it All

Which plant used and even what stones are uses is not as important as how the overall space is used. In all cases congested, cluttered spaces are to be avoided.

The composition is key. A few plants, carefully arranged, suggest more than what is immediately visible to the eye. A path or even a “stream” of rock going around a corner suggest hidden treasures to be revealed. To humanize the garden, a hand worked water basin or a stone lantern are often included.

An Oriental garden works to balance the forces and energies of nature in the area around the home. This will help bring balance and harmony into the home and the people living in the home.

More Garden Design Ideas – every month!

The Month By Month Guide offers tips for all of your landscape plants (yes even lawns and roses) in every month of the year. It is also filled with tips for planning your gardening month and garden design in general.   I have a few copies left and am offering them to you – my loyal readers.

From the review:

“A great reference book is key to successful gardening in the region where you live. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening takes the guesswork out of gardening for anyone residing in the Southwest. With this book, you’ll know what to do each month to enjoy a thriving garden all year, from January to December. Chronologically organized, this guide is full of critical gardening when-to and how-to advice, along with illustrated step-by-step instructions.

The book’s author is Jacqueline Soule, a Tucson-based gardening expert. She knows this arid region inside and out, and she’s written several articles and books packed with her gardening advice. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening showcases Soule’s expertise in one easy-to-read guide.”

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute. 

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