76It is indeed curious that a
small, dry, windy and cold city
like Lethbridge should be home
to an authentic and magnificent
Japanese garden. First opened as
a Centennial project in 1967, the
garden recently celebrated its
50th anniversary. This was an
occasion so auspicious that even
Princess Ayako of Takamado of
the Japanese imperial family
was in attendance and media
coverage was extensive.
Celebrating the lasting friendship
between the people of Canada
and Japan, it was a bold and
progressive move in the 1960s
for a city to make a Japanese
garden its project. With many
citizens of Japanese ancestry,
Lethbridge set a precedent for
inclusion and welcome that
has carried over right to the
present day.
How was it possible, though, to
create a real Japanese garden in a
climate as challenging as Zone 3?
It was a project that called for
creativity, resourcefulness and
brave choices. A Japanese garden
needs to work with and harmonize
with the land, but also with the
people who live there and how
they go about their lives. The
garden was designed by Japanese
landscape architects who were
masters in their field of study,
who also studied the climate and
topography of southern Alberta.
The result is a garden that
acknowledges Alberta’s open
prairies, lush forests, rocks and
mountains, as well as the natural
grace and beauty of flowing water.
Serene and symbolic, Nikka Yuko
has evolved into a place where
birds congregate, water flows
soothingly over rocks, and the
sound of the wind in the trees
sings to you gently but insistently.
The plants in the garden are
all well suited to Alberta’s
climate, but they’re uniquely
chosen to reflect a Japanese
aesthetic. Japan’s famous
flowering cherries were replaced
with spectacular flowering crab
apples. Caragana was substituted
for bamboo. Lilacs stood in for
rhododendrons. Japanese
maples, which fail to flourish in
Alberta’s climate, were discreetly
and elegantly replaced with
Amur maples. These gorgeous,
fine-textured trees are native to
China and accustomed to short,
hot summers with long, cold
winters. They were perfect for the
garden—superb with their soft
green new growth in spring and
their smouldering, fiery red
autumn blaze.
Native shrubs like Potentilla
and junipers were used to blur
the lines between one section of
the garden and another, and
locally collected dramatic rocks
and boulders give the garden a
sense of place and time. In Japan,
the rocks would be covered in
moss. In a dry climate like
Alberta, rocks with great colonies
of lichens were carefully selected.
The pavilion, bell tower,
bridges and azumaya (shelter)
give the garden its body andGARDENING: JAPANESE GARDEN