Niwaki is the Japanese word for "garden trees".

Most varieties of plants used in Japanese Garden

Japanese garden

, that is, gardens in traditional Japanese style, can be found at private homes, in neighborhood or city parks, and at historical landmarks such as Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and old castles....

s are called niwaki. These trees help to create the structure of the garden. Japanese gardens are not about using large range of plants, rather it is about creating atmosphere

Atmosphere

An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...

 or ambiance. The technique

Technique

A technique is a procedure used to accomplish a specific activity or task:* Technology, the study of or a collection of techniques*Skill, the ability to perform a task* Scientific technique, any systematic method to obtain information of a scientific nature...

 of niwaki is more about what to do with a tree than the tree itself. While Western gardeners enjoy experimenting with a wide range of different plants, Japanese gardeners experiment through training and shaping a relatively limited set of plants.

Trees play a key role in the gardens and landscapes of Japan as well as being of important spiritual

Spiritual

Spiritual may refer to:*Spirituality, a concern with matters of the spirit*Spiritual , an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text...

 and cultural significance to its people. Fittingly, Japanese gardeners have fine-tuned a distinctive set of pruning

Pruning

Pruning is a horticultural practice involving the selective removal of parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots. Reasons to prune plants include deadwood removal, shaping , improving or maintaining health, reducing risk from falling branches, preparing nursery specimens for...

 techniques meant to coax out the essential characters of niwaki. Niwaki are often cultivated to achieve some very striking effects: trees are made to look older than they really are with broad trunks and gnarled branches; trees are made to imitate wind-swept or lightning-struck trees in the wild; Cryptomeria japonica

Cryptomeria

Cryptomeria is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family Cupressaceae formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae; it includes only one species, Cryptomeria japonica . It is endemic to Japan, where it is known as Sugi...

specimens are often pruned to resemble free-growing trees.

Some designers are using zoke (miscellaneous plants) as well as the niwaki to create a more 'natural

Natural

Natural is an adjective that refers to Nature.Natural may refer too:In science and mathematics:* Natural transformation, category theory in mathematics* Natural foods...

' mood to the landscape. Most traditional garden designers still rely primarily on the rarefied niwaki palette. The principles of niwaki may be applied to garden trees all over the world and are not restricted to Japanese Gardens.

Plant types

The plants used most commonly in Japanese gardens today include:

• Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergi)
• Japanses cedar (Cryptomeria japonica)
• camellias including sasanqua (Camellia sasanqua)
• many other flowering varieties (Camellia japonica cvs)
• Japanese evergreen oaks (Quercus glanca, Quercus myrsinifolia)
• gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides)
• sweet osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans)
• Japanese maple (Acer palmatum)
• plum (Prunus mume and others)
• Yoshino flowering cherry (Prunusx yedoensis 'Yedoensis')
• Japanese aucuba (Aucuba japonica)
• Japanese andromeda (Pieris japonica)
• winter daphne (Daphne adora)
• Japanese enkianthus (Enkianthus perulatus)
• Satsuki azalea (Rhododendrou indicam).