David MacLaren, curator of the Asian Gardens at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, will speak about the differences between Japanese and Chinese gardens to members and guests of the Palisades Garden Club on Monday, June 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Woman’s Club, 901 Haverford. In the enviable position of overseeing fine examples of both Chinese and Japanese gardens at the Huntington, MacLaren will discuss those gardens and the philosophy behind each aesthetic. The Chinese garden, the most recent addition to the Huntington botanical collection, is inspired by the Chinese tradition of private gardens designed for scholarly pursuits. The name, Liu Fang Yuan, has both literal and symbolic meanings. Liu fang, or flowering fragrance, refers to the scent of flowers and trees. A Chinese garden is often compared to a scroll painting composed of carefully arranged scenes. Visitors to the garden stroll the garden’s pathways and pavilions, enjoying new vistas as if a scroll were being slowly unrolled. Pavilions, bridges, covered walkways and windows are places to view the landscape, as well as objects to be admired for their own beauty. Water, symbolizing the ever-changing, and rocks, as the eternal, create harmony in the garden’yin and yang. The scholars’ gardens were places for literary and artistic activities, such as poetry, painting and calligraphy. A Japanese garden follows the principals of Zen philosophy, emphasizing asymmetry, simplicity, austerity, naturalness and suggestion, rather than revelation and transcendence of the conventional. The garden represents the universe and its elements’fire in the form of a stone or iron lantern, earth in the form of stone, and water, air, plant and animal life in their own forms. Stones generally form the basic supporting framework of a Japanese garden and they should look as if they had always been in the spot in which one sees them. A Japanese garden is not planted with the idea of presenting a display of flowers. In Japan, visitors often enjoy their gardens most in the austere conditions of winter, when the trees are bare and the foliage is at a minimum. The nine-acre Huntington Japanese garden, built in 1912, is currently undergoing renovation, which includes restoration of the Japanese house and general repairs. The highlight of the project will be the installation of a ceremonial teahouse, built in Kyoto in the 1960s for the Pasadena Buddhist Temple. It will be reassembled on a ridge on the southwest side of the garden and surrounded by an authentic tea garden. David MacLaren, who lives in Arcadia, has a B.S. in ornamental horticulture from Cal Poly at Pomona, is a licensed landscape contractor, and is certified as an arborist by the International Society of Arboriculture. The Huntington Botanical Gardens include more than 14,000 kinds of plants in more than a dozen principal garden areas, including the Japanese, rose, Shakespeare, camellia, jungle, palm and Chinese gardens.
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