How to Create, Design and Build Your Own Zen Rock Garden

The Japanese rock garden or "dry landscape" garden, often called a Zen garden, creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water. A Zen garden is usually relatively small, surrounded by a wall, and is usually meant to be seen while seated from a single viewpoint outside the garden, such as the veranda of a temple or monastery. Classical Zen gardens were intended to imitate the essence of nature, not its actual appearance, and to serve as an aid to meditation and reflection about the meaning of life. Instructors from the Japanese Art Center will be here to discuss the symbolism and components of a Zen garden and how to incorporate them into any size garden.