The Start of Something - The Beginnings of a Japanese Garden

A couple of weeks ago we were visiting the family in Australia and decided (on a whim) to make a Japanese garden (or as close as we could get). This garden is in Queensland with a backdrop of sugar cane. This garden very much a work in progress and these photographs were some of the ones taken on only the 2nd day. I hope to post an update at some point soon to show how it is developing.

The water feature is known as a chozubachi (手水鉢)（ちょうずばち）or sometimes as tsukubai (蹲踞)(つくばい)　which is a stone basin filled with water used in Japanese gardens for ritual purification. The water runs from a bamboo feature (apparently called a kakei--although I cannot find a good source on this in Japanese). I made it from bamboo, drilling out the centers of the bamboo with an auger drill bit. I then cut the hole in the larger top section with a hole saw.

Image Source This is a good diagram showing a side view of we did this.

The stone basin is sitting on a sheets of stainless steel mesh above a frame of aluminium struts suspended over a pit that has a large concrete pot embedded in it. There is a pump inside the concrete pot (under the ground) that is being run by the solar panel you can see in the top right-hand corner of the picture. Eventually it will be mounted on the back of the bamboo fence (which was also straightened up after this photo was taken).

We used a natural depression in the ground and dug it out to turn it into a dry creek bed. There is a walk way that winds through the garden eventually going past the water basin.

Thanks for reading! I will post some update pics soon.