
One of the beauties of plants is that they keep growing and changing in harmony with the various conditions they encounter. They calmly accept the changes in their environment.
Plants are flexible and can accept new species transported thanks to the wind and birds. They create a prosperous new environment where each and all can co-exist in harmony.
Recognizing this magnificent “form” is the origin of our landscape design.
We believe that this ability to adapt oneself to changing environment suggests a direction that our society, and that man should take.
Things with “form” are transient, and all sentient beings will cease to exist in their current state at some point.
In the ever-changing society we live in, we ponder what is “timeless”, and what represents a “sustainable garden”, We realize that it is necessary to go beyond observing the garden just in its exterior “form” as an outsider. We must feel the garden as an insider and appreciate the environment surrounding it. It is then, that the garden becomes more than merely a “form” but something that lives on in our heart.
When we respect spirits of the earth and the sky, and energy of the living things, we hear the story of the plants unique to the place. This is our landscape gardening, “NIWA”.

Niwa of Mishou*
Around 45 years ago, we planted about 20 trees. Now there are over 45 trees, with more than half of them being seedlings. They do not excessively spread roots, thus their trunks not growing overly thick. It produces beautiful and delicate trunk lines towards the light.
Though they may be slender, the vitality of plants taking roots unaided is strong. While seedling trees began to flourish, some of the artificially grown trees withered away: they fell ill and be decayed, got blown down by the typhoon, or were intentionally removed. These rise and fall creates the ever-changing landscape.
No matter how you struggle, things won’t go as you want. Regardless of one’s intentions, trees that don’t fit the local environment will not grow. Accept the benefit of the lives born from a series of coincidences, and just enjoy these changes. We believe this attitude may lead to the form of new gardens in the future.
And we expect it will someday resemble a landscape that evokes a sense of nostalgia, as if viewers have seen it somewhere before.
*Niwa of Mishou: Gardens created by trees growing from seeds carried by wind and birds

Niwa of circulation
In this garden, two big camphor trees and a bamboo grove have been handed down from generation to generation. Basking the dappled sunlight, myoga-ginger, fuki (Japanese butterbur), dokudami, and kumasasa-bamboo cover the ground. Along the pathway of neighboring plots, there is a tea hedge. Fruit trees such as citrus fruits are planted along the field.
Withered and pruned branches are utilized as fuel for a woodstove. Bamboos from the grove are used for brooms and hedge materials, and also provide bamboo shoots in spring. Mowed grass and fallen leaves are composted to be decomposed, while rainwater is collected in a reservoir to nourish trees and vegetables.
There is no waste in the garden. It is a place where people interact and enrich themselves with nature, and they feel the natural cycle.
This is our “Niwa (the field of sincerity)”.

Open Atelier
The atelier is normally closed to the public. But once a year, around the end of April, it is open to the public by appointment only. You can visit and watch “Niwa of Mishou” and “Niwa of Circulation”, where our philosophy is put into practice. Please check announcements on social media around March for details.
