Have you ever seen the movie Sayonara? It stars Marlon Brando and a bunch of other celebs along with my absolute favorite, James Garner. Every time I see that man I think - boy, if I wasn't married. Even now as he has aged, he's still a hunk in my book. So are Robert Redford and Paul Newman, but that's another story for another time.

Anyway, we were watching the movie last night and I was admiring the beauty and purity of the Japanese gardens Marlon and his friends were walking through. I remarked to Harlan that I really needed to learn more about Japanese gardening. So, as I usually do, I immediately came into my garden library and started reading. There are some things I knew intuitively that attracted me to Japanese gardens such as their simplicity, serenity, and ease of movement. But others had not occurred to me. For instance, Japanese landscape design has little floral color and relies more on trees, water, stone and evergreens. Japanese gardens are also purposefully designed spaces using texture and symmetry in their definition. To find some good resources, visit BOOKSAMILLION.COM.

The Japanese garden philosophy is not necessarily going to work for me because I like an informal space with riots of color and movement. But there is a small area that I need to clean up in the side garden that could become a small Japanese landscape with our teak bench and chairs. I'll start working on it and, if successful, will take pictures to share with everyone. Oh heck, even if I'm not successful I'll still take pictures. A garden is beautiful no matter how it's designed, isn't it? Happy Gardening.