Japanese Gardens

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View of the central lagoon at the Japanese Garden. Photographed June 4, 2004 by DelosJ

The Japanese Gardens are a collection of Japanese-inspired gardens and a Japanese Cultural Center occupying a 7.5-acre wedge-shaped area at the southern end of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, closest to Mountain Brook Village. The gardens were first dedicated in May 1967, and greatly expanded in 1993.

Sign at the site of the Japanese Gardens in 1965

The idea for the garden originated with Jack Parsons as a way to memorialize his wife, Katie, a Japanese immigrant who had wished for a public Japanese-style bird garden for the children of Alabama before dying of brain cancer in 1964. The Federated Garden Club of Alabama took up sponsorship of the project and started a "Japanese Garden Fund" with John Buchanan as treasurer. Mrs Harvey Hooks was appointed to chair an advisory committee created by Jimmy Morgan, then serving as chair of the Botanical Gardens Committee on the Birmingham Park and Recreation Board. Morgan began consulting with Kenji Shiozawa & Associates of California to plan the garden. City horticulturist Carl Mattil was initially put in charge of preparing for its construction.

In 1965 with support from the Japanese Garden Society, architect Darcey Tatum engaged Japanese-American architect Masaji "Buffy" Murai to create a garden design. A major earth-moving project brought 600 tons of rock from Oak Mountain and excavated an artificial lake with a picturesque island surrounded by sculpted, mounded earth with curving paths. Senator John Sparkman was able to secure the gift of a tea house from the 1965 New York World's Fair, given by the Japanese Trade Association.

Sent to retrieve it from New York, architect Fritz Woehle found the building at the center of a tax dispute. He and his helpers quietly disassembled the pegged-wooden structure and trucked it to Birmingham where it was carefully reassembled using photographs for reference.

The May 6, 1967 dedication of the new attraction was attended by the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and was accompanied by the Birmingham Festival of Arts salute to Japan. The gardens, with large, bright-colored koi swimming in the pond and red-painted bridges and a torii gate at the entrance, have been a popular attraction at the Botanical Gardens ever since.

Torii gate, June 2011

A Bonsai House was added to the Japanese Gardens on behalf of the Alabama Bonsai Society.

The entrance to the garden was re-landscaped in 1988 with funds donated by the Drummond Company in honor of Ezra Drummond. A tile-capped stucco wall surrounds a group of gardens and structures completed in 1993 as a cultural center.

Volunteer committee chair and builder Doug Moore worked alongside Japanese temple carpenter Kazunori Tago to complete the cultural center, which won official recognition from the government of Japan. A raked-gravel "zen" garden occupies one corner of the walled area while a new traditional style tea-house, called the Toshinan, was constructed nearby for special events.

Across an intricately-planted stream garden from the tea house is a pavilion used for open air classes and performances. Nearby in the Hulsey Woods, a large bronze "friendship bell", provided as a project of the Rotary Clubs hangs in a wooden belfry, built by Moore and his son Michael.

References

  • Spotswood, Frances (February 19, 1964) "Husband pleased with garden site" The Birmingham News
  • Satterfield, Carolyn Green (1999) The Birmingham Botanical Society: A Brief History. Birmingham: Birmingham Botanical Society. ISBN 0966967011
  • Brock, Glenny (March 8, 2012) "Through the Gate to Heaven: Cherry Blossom Festival Celebrates Revitalized Japanese Gardens". Weld for Birmingham pp. 16-17