San Francisco is well known for its diverse architecture and landscape styles. It’s not uncommon to find a bit of everything in the Bay Area, including homes influenced by Queen Anne, Victorian, Edwardian, Mission, Early Residential, Art Deco, Italian, Postmodern and, more recently, Asian-inspired landscaping design trends.
With an ever-evolving city makeup and climate change, gone are the days of home and property owners trying to match the front or back landscapes of their property to the architecture or one specific social trend. Asian-influenced structures and landscaping elements have grown in popularity in the city and region in recent years.
People often choose Asian Style landscapes for sustainability, tranquility and variety. Whether you want to renovate a small, medium or large outdoor space, this type of landscaping creates a beautiful, harmonious and relaxing environment that can serve as a social gathering spot as easily as a place for meditation and renewal of spirit.
The Essence of Asian Landscape Design
Asian-inspired landscaping focuses on balance and natural beauty. It usually relies heavily upon the influence of three types of Japanese gardens that connect a person’s experience within the landscape to the natural world around them through the use of specific materials and elements. A homeowner might choose to install a karesansui, or dry rock garden; a chaniwa, or tea garden; a tsukiyama, or artificial hill garden; or a combination of gardens or associated elements.
Common features include a color palette devoted to shades of brown, green and gray with seasonal accents in other vibrant colors. Each garden design focuses on minimalism and simplicity to create elegance and peacefulness. Every element is meticulously chosen with a specific beauty or functional purpose in mind.
With years of experience Paul carefully selects just enough features to mimic certain aspects of nature, appeal to and evoke specific feelings and thoughts, and meet a property owner’s preferences. Additionally, this type of design often relies on subtle complementary and contrasting elements (i.e., closed spaces, open spaces, moss, trees and other plants, stones, light, shade, walkways, et cetera).
These elements are perfect, low-maintenance landscaping options for a time when cooler temperatures and water are often scarce. Depending on the amount of space available, an expert landscaper can mix and match elements or even add non-Asian elements that serve multiple purposes.
Zen Garden: Creating Tranquility
The Japanese karesansui garden, more commonly known as a Zen garden, works well in an urban setting. Although it can have a water feature, it doesn’t traditionally require it. Instead, this type of garden typically contains minimal ones comprised of rock fragments (i.e., gravel and sand) and complete rocks of varying shapes and sizes within a walled-off area.
Traditionally, a dry garden recreates the essence of a landscape found in nature without duplicating or directly mimicking it. In a city, this type of Japanese landscape art garden brings the feel of nature without recreating it. Creating a focal point in small spaces, by using the natural elements. These projects create gardens that contains few features so that it reduces distractions and helps a person become more capable of feeling calm, performing acts of contemplation or meditation, and exploring spiritual pursuits.
Japanese Garden: A Touch of Elegance
It’s impossible to discuss Asian-inspired landscaping without covering tea and artificial hill gardens. In an urban setting, these gardens fulfill their historic purpose of slowing down life to a more pleasant pace that helps people live in the moment. Both styles of gardens create an elegant getaway space that blocks off the outside world and allows for the total celebration of nature in all its glory.
Tea and hill gardens contain common materials and features designed to reproduce the look of forests and parks, such as greenery, stones and wooden elements, and manmade objects. Typically, a tea garden features a central tea house at the end of a short or straight path. It helps people to appreciate nature, the tea garden ceremony, and the company of others.
Essential components of both gardens are a stone walkway, a pond with or without koi or some other water feature (i.e., a bamboo fountain or a waterfall), flat stones for islands and low land masses and vertical ones for mountains, native local and Japanese plants, and human elements like bridges, lanterns and sculptures.
Incorporating Local Landmarks: A Nod to the Golden Gate
Among the many design opportunities available to property owners is the option to blend an Asian Style landscape with an iconic view of San Francisco locales, such as the Golden Gate Bridge or the San Francisco Bay.
However, a property owner with a direct view of the bridge or bay can go a step further. They can use native plants and materials in a Japanese garden layout with a Golden Gate Bridge or Bay view as the backdrop.
They can also blend Asian Style elements with other features of modern landscape design. For example, they might also install stone retaining walls, a swimming pool, a wooden deck, an outdoor kitchen, or even a fire pit area. They might add a circular stone or wooden moon gate as an archway to enter the space or frame their view of the bridge, bay or another landmark.
Working with a Landscape Architect
To achieve the right outcome, you must find a San Francisco landscape architect who possesses extensive experience with this form of art. Designing an Asian-inspired landscape is a collaborative process.
From the initial concept to the final implementation, the property owner and Paul communicate in order to brainstorm, create and ultimately implement the client’s vision. When you consider what the best landscapers offer, you can’t help but realize it’s more than installation services. We actively listen to your ideas about your “dream” space and provide design recommendations and refinement services. We also procure all materials needed for the installation.
We consider the existing architecture of the home, existing and any other nearby buildings, the amount of space in the front or back yard or side areas, and other factors unique to a property and adjacent properties. To better understand how these factors alter outcomes, we’ve provided five examples of Asian-inspired landscaping projects we previously completed in different parts of San Francisco below. Each one shows common elements and different interpretations:
Conclusion
An Asian-inspired landscape allows you to block out the city and embrace the tranquility of a nature-influenced setting in any part of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Instead of a front or back yard that contains cold, modern or outdated concrete, red brick or sleek metal elements, you can enhance your home with Japanese garden and landscape features that create a unique experience that immediately offers you welcome, beauty, peace and seclusion inside of the ever-present urban jungle.
With these elements, you can create a shaded area and conserve water during hot days. Whether you want a tiny bamboo fountain with a stone water basin surrounded by Japanese trees and drought-resistant ground cover or a low-maintenance xeriscape with a waterless Japanese rock garden, we can transform your outdoor living space into a sustainable retreat. This approach not only reduces maintenance costs but also raises property value. Adding trees and shrubs will enhance the space while promoting coolness and tranquility.
At Tamate Landscaping, we provide a wide range of Asian Style and other landscaping services. Look no further for custom design and installation of landscapes and related patio, lighting, stone, water and wall features. We can create a refuge that will help you put aside any worries and stresses caused by noise and light pollution and other urban disruptions. Call us today at 415-481-2536 for more details.
