By SUE RYAN
News staff writer
July 31, 2007

A garden designed to pay tribute to the heritage of the Japanese people in Hood River County combines simple elements of stone, water and plants.

Landscape architect Sadafumi Uchiyama shared the final design July 11 with the Central Gorge Master Gardeners association. Grant monies from the Hood River Cultural Trust and private donations paid for the design work.

The group is working on the project as the latest phase in its Learning Garden at the OSU Extension office in Hood River, which began in 2002 and is made up of several gardens (see sidebar).

Master Gardener Rita Saling had suggested one of her favorite type gardens, Japanese, because she thought the site would lend itself to one. As she wrote the proposal for the steering committee, she realized that there had never been any sort of permanent tribute to the Japanese citizens who had suffered through internment during World War II.

“I had moved to Parkdale as a child during the war, and actually had Japanese children return to my school at the war’s end. My father worked at McIsaac’s store in Parkdale during the time that the Japanese were being refused services in other stores in the valley. I have some vague memories of the “No Japs” signs in the windows of merchants in Hood River during that time.

“When my mother, a nurse, told me she had been to a Japanese classmate’s home and had delivered a baby for the family, I didn’t understand why the mother hadn’t gone to the hospital. Now I realize that it may have been fear that kept the woman home,” she said. “I began to think that this project could provide the valley an opportunity to rectify a wrong that was long past due.”

When she read Linda Tamura’s book, “An Oral History of the Issei of the Hood River Valley,” she realized that the connection of the Japanese to the agriculture of the valley made the development of the Japanese Heritage Garden even more important.

The groundbreaking will take place this fall in early October with development and planting of the garden in 2008 and 2009. The site is between the OSU Extension office and the Mid Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center on the grounds.

Uchiyama explained that the plan incorporates three main goals: the wonderful view, ground that sloped away from the entrance and maintenance.

“The skills required to maintain this garden is easy and not something you have to train for five years to do,” he said.

Distinguishing elements of a Japanese garden include water, bamboo fencing and stone lanterns. A stone pathway will lead the visitor from the parking lot to the beginning of the garden.

The entrance begins with a 6-foot-tall lantern with the intent of creating a sense of distance to the backdrop of the eastern foothills. Once past the stone lantern, the visitor can delve further into the garden by taking a slight turn onto the white granite gravel of the interior.

“The design uses multiple turns to use limited space to the best advantage,” said Uchiyama.

The initial site was 53 by 46 feet and anchored by the Norway Spruce tree and inside an existing cement walk. That was expanded slightly to include part of the verge area, and two additional garden beds.

He said a typical Japanese garden incorporates many borders. Often these are walls but also hedges or trees. Hedges will be clipped back by one-half or one-third to allow rocks to peep out from the shrubbery.

“The design is kept clean with flat horizontal planes,” Uchiyama said.

The new garden will incorporate the estimated 100-year-old spruce tree on the grounds but wood fences will be built along the sides of nearby buildings to screen the bottom halves. Uchiyama explained how the fence combined with the spruce tree achieves two objectives.

“The framing obscures some of the upper part of the building and it helps to make the view more complete; less artificial,” he said.

The garden will be surrounded by a border of varied plants and trees but people will be able to leave through the path of stepping stones at the eastern edge.

The Master Gardener group will learn about the materials used in creating the garden including the various types of plants and fencing. Uchiyama said for the group to maintain the garden, it is important they be trained.

“Building a fence is one thing; it will combine education and create the garden at the same time,” he said. “But it is also important you know the properties of the material, such as the bamboo, as well.”

The list of plantings for the garden incorporates many traditional Japanese plants including a type of tea. Uchiyama said while it is common for gardens in Japan to use the tea plant in landscaping, in America the choice is unusual.

“The idea is to bring plants from your sister city (Tsuruta) as a way to tie into the cultural exchange and relationship,” Uchiyama said.

The tea variety will be a Camellis sinensis that Uchiyama said will be easy to obtain as it is an agricultural product already exported to the U.S. The gardeners plan to incorporate classes about harvesting the tea and tea ceremonies into the educational component of the Japanese Heritage Garden.