Betty Truax's Gardens

First off, let me say that my Japanese Meditation Garden is by no means a formal Japanese Garden... it's just a place for me to sit and enjoy tea in the shade.  
I had read in one of the many gardening books I've collected  over the years that Japanese gardens represent elements such as mountains, water, trees etc.  I decided to create my own version with the stone wall representing the mountains, the azaleas and dogwood to represent the trees and obviously the small ponds would represent water.  

When we moved into this home, the former owner had built stone tiers in the front yard. The stones were collected from our property when the house was remodelled.

There were a couple of nice hostas and azaleas planted which I moved around a bit. There was also some ivy and pachasandra (I'm still working on ericating them both).  

The picture above was taken in the winter of 2003.  You can't see itbut there is a dogwood on the top tier. Birds love this particular bird bath and often sit on the branches of that tree.  I love sitting at the lower level watching blue jays, titmouse, cardinals and other birds splash in the birdbath and then fly up into the dogwood and "fluff" up!  My neighbor keeps me in tadpoles all summer (she's a pond expert at a large local nursery and "saves" them regularly).   

This garden has quite a bit of shade although there are a couple of large hemlocks on the lower tier that I'm considering having taken out. They just don't look very nice and are too big for such a small garden.  I have planted a small weeping japanese maple but need to do some research on what else I might consider replacing them with.

This garden is also home to a couple of my favorite plants.  One is a trillium, my weeping japanese maple and my first helleborus which was a "share" plant from a dear friend.