Japanese garden designer Sadafumi Uchiyama, above left, looks on as riggers connect a boulder to an excavator at Wellfield Botantical Gardens in Elkhart. Photo provided
ELKHART — Wellfield Botanic Gardens continues to grow as it adds new themed gardens to its 36 acres.
Currently under construction, the “Island Garden,” Wellfield’s ¾-acre Japanese-style garden, is received critical attention from Sadafumi Uchiyama during his three-day visit to Wellfield this week.
“Sada,” as he is known to friends and colleagues, was hired onto the project in 2015 to re-envision the original Master Plan for the space which includes a Japanese-style pavilion, mountain stream and waterfall, as well as traditional stone lanterns, authentic Japanese Garden construction and design techniques.
During his visit, Sada is working with several visiting contractors with experience in Japanese garden construction, leading them in strategic placement of large boulders with heavy machinery throughout the Island Garden.
These boulders, which weigh up to 12,000 pounds, are critical to the structure of the space, defining pathways, evoking the geology of the natural landscape, and serve functional purposes. Boulders are also being placed to strengthen the shorelines of the Island Garden, which sits between Wellfield’s Lotus Pond and Swan Pond.
Once the stone setting is complete, work may continue on pathway surfaces and the planting of over 250 prescribed shrubs and trees can commence.
“The boulders and stones are truly the ‘bones’ of the space,” said Josh Steffen, horticulture and facilities manager at Wellfield Botanic Gardens. “They define the space. We’re very proud to have Sada designing and setting the stones in our garden. His experience and presence add an authenticity to the project that we could not do on our own.”
Sadafumi Uchiyama is the Garden Curator at the Portland Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon, and a third-generation Japanese gardener from southern Japan where his family has been involved in gardening for over a century.
Devoted to fostering relations between Japanese gardens in Japan and those outside of Japan, Uchiyama served as one of seven founding members of the International Association of Japanese Gardens (IAJG) in 1996. He later helped to establish the North American Japanese Garden Association (NAJGA) beginning in 2009.
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