Garden Elements: Bamboo Fences
This brand new
yotsume
fence being built and installed around the perimeter of the tea garden is an attractive garden element that homeowners can recreate in their own gardens.
This month, our staff gardeners are working in collaboration with Seattle Parks and Recreation carpenters on a work of art--Japanese-style bamboo fencing.
In Japanese Gardens, bamboo fencing is intended less as a hard barrier, and more of a gentle boundary, indicating a transition in the intended use of the space. The roji, the tea garden that surrounds the Shoseian tea house, is a distinct garden-within-a-garden, and thus one of the few areas in Seattle Japanese Garden where bamboo fences are used.
There are many different styles of authentic bamboo fencing in gardens in Japan, which you may want to explore. Yotsume-gaki, which literally translates to four-eyed fence, is most commonly used style fence used to surround tea gardens. If you like this simple, elegant style, it is fortunately one of the easier authentic bamboo fences that homeowners can recreate.
Learn better by videos? Enjoy a video tutorial here.