Flagship Training Program for Professionals
About the Seminar
Waza to Kokoro is the Japanese Garden Training Center’s flagship program. This program helps Japanese gardens outside of Japan find authentic, locally-appropriate solutions in design, construction, maintenance, and preservation. It is designed for professionals working in Japanese gardens, but is also open to landscape design and construction professionals as well as students of landscape-related disciplines. We are a Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System accredited provider.
This is a three-part seminar, focusing on the traditional, hands-on learning process of stonework in the tea garden, supplemented with theoretical instruction, and practice in topics including garden design, pruning, bamboo fence construction, aesthetics, history, and traditional tool use. These technical skills gain context through the culture of tea to nurture a sense of aesthetics, balance, and composition.
- Philosophy of Waza to Kokoro: The unity of techniques and spirit essential to understanding the art of the Japanese garden.
- History: The styles and techniques of the Japanese garden through the centuries and its relation to society, culture, religion and architecture.
- Culture and connection to nature: Practicing tea ceremony while learning to integrate the aesthetics, philosophy, and way of tea into one’s own approach to the garden arts. Watch this video on the study of tea to learn more.
- Japanese aesthetics: The Japanese idea of beauty and how it is represented across art forms.
- Drawing and design: Learning to observe patterns, forms, and elements in the garden and nature and making accurate visual representations of original ideas.
- Garden components and composition: Principles of placement, size, style and proportion for built and natural elements.
- Garden materials: Understanding the origins and proper utilization in the garden of stone, plants, bamboo and wood.
- Plant management: Building a practical understanding of everyday practices in soil sciences, pruning, pest control and other areas.
- Hands-on stone workshop: Learning, through careful observation and hands-on participation, the process of site preparation, materials selection and preparation, design, and construction of the stone elements of a tea garden.
- Practical application: Synthesizing lessons learned into a sketchbook with drawings and notes.
2005 Seminar: Beginner Level, September 5 -11, 2025
APPLICATION OPENS ON May 7
The Seminar will be held at Portland Japanese Garden and offsite venues, where participants will get a chance to explore and learn from its authentic techniques, design, and composition.
True to its philosophy of combining the western teaching and eastern teaching, everything will be taught in English while providing a very profound experience through the art of tea. This year, our Garden Curator and Director of Japanese Garden Training Center, Hugo Torii, will lead the seminar together with our powerful TC faculties, and we will also have an instructor from Japan.
Admission: The seminar is designed for professionals working in Japanese gardens, but admission is also open to landscape design and construction professionals as well as students of landscape-related disciplines.
This seminar costs $2,500. We offer student financial assistance up to $500 for those who qualify.
The Training Center is an approved LA CES (Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System) provider. Our courses are also eligible for continuing education credit by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers and the Oregon Landscape Contractors Association.
Please contact us at trainingcenter@japanesegarden.org for questions or more information.
See what past participants have said about the seminar here.