はじめまして、ガーデン デザイン ショップ 庭衆です。

Some weeks ago, Niwashyu staff went to a moss seminar at Nespas building Omotesando.

It was held by Echigokokesho, a company from Niigata, specialized in moss.
There was a short introduction of what conditions moss needs to grow properly like the need for slight acidity.
Everybody in the audience could ask questions, so we got quite some information about the problems that can occur when planting moss.
It can, for example, be a problem to install a moss garden within one kilometer from the sea. But after this zone, moss will have no problems with salty sea air.
We also learned, that a lot of moss sellers cut moss mats in a way, that it will need a long time to built new sprouts.
It was quite informative and a nice opportunity to learn something about growing and planting moss and see different varieties of moss in real.

Yesterday I went to a seminar of two famous Australians, organized by Takasho, together with Hayano-san and Yamamoto-san.
One of them is an architekt and one a garden designer.
In Australia both have to work close together to produce gardens with a "Fifth Room".

That is the main concept of modern Australian gardens. A room without walls, that connect the garden to the house.

That aspect is very important to Australians, as they want to spent a lot of time outside the house in their gardens.

My impression was, that the australian design uses a lot of elements known in Japan but also known in Germany.

I like the idea to live in the garden. That is what I did in my parents house all the time.
I would appreciate it, if that becomes also common in Japan's big citys too.
As Japanese people uses parks as an "outdoor living room" is something I really really love, I like the idea of a balcony as the "Fifth Room".

I did it!

Yesterday I finished my first presentation of a soon to be newly arranged garden.

I never did something like that before, so it was kind of challenging and I was sooo slow!
But now as I know the procedures and programs like Illustrator, I think I can make it a bit faster next time.

Most difficult to me was the selection of the perennials and small shrubs.
There are so many wonderful plants, it was hard to choose between them..

But that was also great fun and I'm looking forward to the next project and to draw more plans in the future!



- Anika

Hello everybody!

私はnew staff小楠アニカと申します。

I'm really happy I'm able to work in the Garden Design Shop and would like to introduce myself to you.

My name is Anika Ogusu and like Jenny-senpai I come from Germany.
My interest in gardens is based in my childhood and in some wonderful women.
I was raised in a house where my family lived together with my grandparents. My grandmother and her sister, the awesome nature researcher Loki Schmidt, influenced my interest in plants a lot. So I played in the nearby forest almost every day and helped my grandmother in the huge garden.
When I was old enough to ask myself what profession I will choose, I always said “gardener”.
At the age of 13 one special Anime series from Japan hit me and from that moment on, I collected everything related to Japan. Even financial articles from newspapers. So it didn`t last long that I got interested in Japanese Gardens.

At the age of 22 I started my training to become a professional gardener at the Botanic Garden of Hamburg in Germany. This garden now bears the name of my grant aunt Loki.
After two years of studying in the garden and at a gardening school, I graduated as number two in Hamburg of the perennial specialized section.

I worked for four years in the Botanic Garden of Hamburg, first in the green houses where I cared for tropical plants and beneficial insects.
And after that in the so-called “perennial valley”, outside the greenhouses, where I could organize maintenance and new arrangements by myself.

But I never forgot about Japan and Japanese Gardens and so I applied for an exchange program in Japan. I went to a small city in Saitama prefecture for 6 months to learn gardening in a Japanese gardening company. That was in late April 2012.
But as you can see, I'm still in Japan (^_-)
I realized, that there is so much more to learn about Japan and Japanese Gardens and I'm always searching for ways to improve my knowledge.
My greatest hobbies in Japan are visiting gardens and do research about them.

So I`m glad to be able to work with Hayano-san and Jenny-san who can teach me so much about my favorite subject and I hope to can help, bringing Real Japanese Gardens to the world.

See you soon!

よろしくお願いいたします　m(_ _)m

Anika

こんにちは、

お久しぶりです！
Ｒｅａｌ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　Ｇａｒｄｅｎｓ　のイエニーといいます。

一月に東京からサンフランシスコへ引っ越しました。
サンフランシスコはとても住み易いだと思いますが、大好きな日本から離れてのはとても寂しかったです。
今は大分アメリカン・ライフスタイルになりましたが、和食、日本庭園等が恋しくなりました。
このため、五月下旬に二週間再来日しました。

Sorry, my Japanese has certainly not improved in the last couple of months, so I have to continue in
English.

(What happened so far: I left Japan in January to move to San Francisco. Although SF is a really nice place to live, I was very sad to be far away from my beloved Japan. Now, I got used to "The American Lifestyle", but I still miss Japanese things like traditional Japanese food and, of course, Japanese gardens. That is also the reason why I returned to Tokyo and Kyoto for two weeks end of May)



The first day I visited of course Hayano-san and all the guys from the Niwashyu Garden Design Studio in Yoyogi. It was so good to meet everyone again - it felt like no time has past at all! We went for lunch in one of my favorite restaurants in Yoyogi - Takase (高瀬 - Takase link). They have exceptionally good lunch sets!




Hayano-san also had the Real Japanese Garden business cards and post cards printed, which I would take along to my trip to Kyoto. One side is in English (Jenny Feuerpeil), the other one has my name in Japanese on it (伊恵弐・フォイヤーパイル)


I spent the next week in Kyoto - visiting a great number of beautiful temples and meeting awesome people. I stayed at a couchsurfing host - Minoru Yonekawa - who has a very unique Ramen restaurant. It is called Mamezen (豆禅) and can best be described as gentle "Kyoto-style Dashi Soymilk Ramen" 豆乳らーめん. （Tabeblog , Kyoto Foodie）. The Ramen come with nama yuba and taste like heaven!



I will write more about my Kyoto adventures and the gardens visited (Shisen-do, Manshu-in Monseki, a secret tea garden with a Noh stage in Higashiyama, Chion-in, Entsu-ji, Koto-in, Korin-in and many more) in future blog posts, but for now, I would like to return with you to Tokyo, where I spent my last night of the trip on the PechaKucha stage - again! When I first came to Japan, I wanted to learn more about Japanese (Garden) Design. While I am sure that my journey is nowhere near the end, I wanted to seize the opportunity and summarize what I had learned so far as a garden designer in a 6 minute 40 second presentation.

You can watch this and my previous presentation online on the PechaKucha platform here: 7 Design Lessons from the Japanese Garden

Some impressions from the Pecha Kucha night:







It was a very fun night, a great trip and I was happy to see Hayano-san, Suda-san, Yoshino-san again and meet the new staff member Kamei-san as well.

Hope to see you soon again,

またよろしくお願いします。

伊恵弐
Jenny Feuerpeil



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