Award-winning architect Gang Chen addresses this frequently posed question in his recently published book, "Planting Design Illustrated." Images drawn from Washington Park Arboretum's Japanese Garden and various mainland Japanese and Chinese gardens illustrate the author's discussion, which has been summarized under several distinct subject headings. In the early seventh century C.E., the beauty of the emperor's royal gardens astonished Japanese envoys to the Chinese imperial court. During the next 200 years, the Japanese imported, more or less intact, Chinese garden styles into their own island nation, which had no native gardening tradition of its own. Subsequently, however, each country's gardening style evolved along a separate path, respondingto its unique climate, geography, history and culture. Today, while the two garden styles demonstrably stem from a common ancestor, their respective uses of garden architecture, rocks and plants achieve strikingly different effects.
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