To make a Japanese-influenced garden these days, you have to do more than buy a stone lantern and plant some dwarf evergreens.

American gardeners today are much more sophisticated.

The “Asian fusion” gardening of 2007 is more about the principles of the Japanese or Chinese garden — simplicity and serenity — and less about making an exact replica of an Asian garden or using only plants indigenous to the East.

At the New England Spring Flower Show, which runs through Sunday at the Bayside Expo Center in Boston, several of the exhibits focus on how home gardeners can incorporate bamboo, threadleaf Japanese maples and stone lanterns alongside native New England plants and materials.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of bamboo, a lot of Asian influence in the gardens this year,” said Thomas Herrera-Mishler, executive director of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which puts on the annual show.

Herrera-Mishler pointed to a nearby exhibit as an example. It featured feathery, shrub-like Japanese maples, a weeping ornamental tree with cascading pink blossoms and a pond — all Asian. Yet it also had classic New England hostas, bunches of low-growing, meadow-like flowers, and big slabs of rough-cut rock.

“I think of (rock) as a classic New England material,” Herrera-Mishler said.

He strolled over to a nearby exhibit that had square, white paper lanterns hanging from the trees and shrubs. It also had burgundy tulips and other plants that aren’t typically found in Japanese gardens.

“She has so much going on here,” he said of the work of the gardener who put the display together. “It’s amazing.”

While some of the gardens used bamboo and other Asian-style plants as part of the fusion, others borrowed from the East with minimalist and calming designs. A display by Steel Works of Athol has hardly any plant life at all — just potted plants at the corners of a bare, stone courtyard. New England Land Artisan of Stratham, N.H., created a patio scene with a river-like path of rounded rocks, tufts of bamboo and a variety of mosses covering the ground.

So how do you try Asian fusion in your own garden?

Debra Kowalski, co-manager of Corliss Brothers Nursery and Garden Center in Ipswich, said many plants that we think of as typically Asian will grow very well in New England.

Dwarf evergreens, for example, hail from the mountains of Japan and thus are tolerant of cold and dry conditions. Japanese maples, with the lacy, fern-like leaves, grow well here, too, Kowalski said. Just take care to plant them where they’ll get some shade and are protected from the wind.

“I think people are looking for solitude and I think that the Japanese garden sort of represents that,” Kowalski said. “We’re all looking for a place to go and relax and get away from the craziness of the world.”

In that sense, just about any garden can have an element of the East, said Christopher DeRosa, owner of New England Bamboo Co. in Rockport.

“I think that people are getting refined in their design approaches to include a Western-style Oriental-principled garden,” DeRosa said. “They’re not trying to replicate a Japanese or Chinese garden. They’re trying to do an Oriental-principled garden in New England.”

He said the Asian fusion trend is “part of an exuberance in gardening style that wants to express the Oriental principles of simplicity and harmony but in a very American way.” Those principles of simplicity and harmony go along with themes of man dominating nature and nature dominating man.

You can achieve this in a garden by combining man-made objects and natural objects, DeRosa said.

For example, using a cut stone that has a naturalistic pattern to it will show harmony between man and nature. A water element may have the same effect.

“Water is natural, but it’s done in a contrived way through this stream bed that is man-made,” DeRosa said.

Planting bamboo, even varieties native to North America, can give the garden a vertical element that indicates the sky “because it leads you upward,” he said.

There are plenty of books and Web sites you can read to learn more about these principles, DeRosa said, but your own intuition is sometimes the best guide. Just pay attention to what appeals to you, he said.

“A Zen master did tell me that you can’t think or do what you don’t already know,” DeRosa said. “That’s why instincts are so powerful.”

Asian fusion at home

Want to give your home landscape a little Asian flair? Here are some of the Asian-influenced plants exhibitors used in their New England Flower Show displays:

Green cutleaf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘vivides’)

Japanese maple with reddish-purple foliage (Acer palmatum ‘Tamukeyama’)

Golden-leaved Japanese maple (Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’)

Dwarf red cedar (Cedrus deodara)

Japanese silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis)

Black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra)

Bonsai trees

Bamboo for beginners

Bamboo plants were the stars of this year’s New England Flower Show, appearing in both traditional Japanese gardens and in Asian fusion exhibits. Christopher DeRosa, owner of the New England Bamboo Co. in Rockport, shared some tips for getting started with bamboo.

There are two types of bamboo, running and clumping. Be very careful with running bamboo because it spreads and can be invasive. Clumping bamboo is non-invasive.

Bamboo adapts to just about any garden setting in New England. It prefers soil that is not too wet or too alkaline.

Canes last seven to 10 years. Each year, one or a few canes will die and more will grow. The only maintenance required is to prune the dead canes.

The tallest bamboo that grows in this region is 45 to 48 feet tall. During a spring growth spurt, a bamboo shoot will grow to its entire height in four to six weeks. For the tallest varieties, that’s a growth rate of about half an inch per hour. (Bamboo in other parts of the world grow as fast as 1.5 inches per hour and reach 110 feet tall).

Bamboo can be planted in a row to function as a hedge, a windbreak or a sound barrier. It can also be planted individually as a garden specimen or to accentuate other plants. Try planting them beside hostas or plants with large, boldly colored leaves.

If you’re just starting with bamboo, try Fargesia rufa. It’s an evergreen grass that grows to six or seven feet and is as wide as it is tall.

If you want something a little more exotic, try black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra). It has black stems and green leaves.

If you want a bamboo that’s native to the United States, try Arundinaria gigantea.

If you want a bamboo with a particularly Asian look, try Fargesia Jiuzhaigou. It has red stems and long, narrow feathery leaves. It is relatively hard to get in the United States. New England Bamboo Co. said it was the first to import it.

If you go

What: The 136th annual New England Flower Show

Where: Bayside Expo Center, 200 Mount Vernon St., Boston

When: Today through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Special events: Today is “Great gardens of New England Day” from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; tomorrow is “Girls Night Out” from 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday is “Plantapalooza: Children’s Festival and Educators Night” from 4:30 to 8 p.m.; Saturday is “Brides n’ Blooms” from 1 to 4 p.m.; Sunday is “Music in the Gardens” all day.

How: Tickets are $20 for adults, $17 for seniors, $12 for students and $10 for children ages 4 to 12. For more, call 617-933-4980.

source : www.salemnews.com