The Flowers and Gardens of Japan

About this book

A garden path curves around a pond. Irises rise beside still water, and carefully shaped pines frame a distant mountain. Florence Du Cane describes a Japan in which gardens are made to invite a particular way of looking.

Ella Du Cane's watercolours give the book its delicate sense of season and place, from private courtyards to famous landscapes. The text discusses plants, design and the customs surrounding Japanese gardens. Its early twentieth-century viewpoint sometimes idealises what it sees, but the illustrations offer an enduring study of controlled beauty and natural change.