The Crane garden

What it is

The crane and the tortoise are paired symbols of long life. A Japanese saying gives the crane a thousand years and the tortoise ten thousand. In a garden their islands are usually placed so that they can see one another.

The crane is shown as an upright group of stones: a tall stone for the neck, flat stones spread wide for the wings. A pine shaped by the niwaki technique is almost always planted beside it — it holds its silhouette all year round.

How ours is made

The stones of the crane, a niwaki pine, an underground suikinkutsu by the hill.

The pine is still to be shaped in the niwaki technique — the same way we were taught in the masters' classes.

Motif

The crane island

Planting

A pine in the niwaki style

Elements

A suikinkutsu by the hill

Status

Planned