Japanese gardens (日本庭園, nihon teien) are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas.Japanese Friendship Garden, Phoenix, Arizona

These spaces of meditation and reflection avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape.St. Mungo Museum of Art, Glasgow, Scotland

Plants and worn, aged materials are often used by Japanese garden designers to suggest a natural landscape, and to express the fragility of existence as well as time’s unstoppable advance.Kōraku-en, Okayama, Japan

Water is an important feature of many gardens, as are rocks and often gravel.Jissoin Temple, Kyoto, Japan

Despite there being many attractive Japanese flowering plants, herbaceous flowers generally play much less of a role in Japanese gardens than in the West.Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Exceptions include seasonally flowering shrubs and treees, made all the more dramatic because of the contrast with the usual predominant green.Kairaku-en, Mito, Japan

Japanese gardens often capture aspects of the traditional Shinto religion, as well as Daoism and Buddhism.Kokedera – Moss Temple, Kyoto, Japan

The gardens speak of the unstoppable march of time, natural aspects of the Japanese landscape.Adachi Museum of Art, Yasugi, Japan

Wherever you find a Japanese Garden, take time to connect with time, space, and your own heart.Taizo-in Garden, Myoshin-ji Temple Complex, Kyoto, Japan

Japanese Garden, Fort Worth, Texas