End of an era

Last week was my last at Anderson Japanese Gardens. My eight plus years as a horticulturist there has ended.

While I learned a lot and am thankful for my time there, I am very much looking forward to my new position in the design build department of a local Nursery/Landscaping company.

I thought today would be a good opportunity to look back at the posts I have done that were influenced by my work at the garden.

This included posts that were specifically about Japanese garden concepts, pruning, and of course plants I was first exposed to at the garden.

2012 posts

Back in August of 2012, I began my blog at jimanderson.net. I wrote a lot about plants that were at the garden as well the topic of designing for Fall color, which is one thing the garden is an excellent example of.

• First step to starting your Japanese garden landscape
• Two trees with great winter bark & fall color
• Plants for Fall Color – Four principles
• Plants for fall color – Part 1 of 2
• Plants for Fall color Part 2 of 2
• Bringing nature indoors

2013 posts

In 2013, I started to get my stride a bit and started writing about things that were directly influenced by my work at the garden or areas of the garden. It was also in late September when I moved my site to yourgardensanctuary.com in order to be more descriptive of the content I was aspiring to write. Some of these are among my personal favorites.

• Japanese garden fall color lessons you can use
• Japanese garden fall color can inspire your garden design
• Aesthetic pruning goals for your garden sanctuary
• Three aesthetic pruning cuts
• Garden Structures for Four Season Interest
• Green leaf Japanese maple

2014 posts

This year started with six posts about creating a Japanese garden in a small backyard. This started with a reader questions, and lead to a 5 part series that ended with a complete Japanese style residential backyard design. A post answering another reader’s question about practical Japanese garden books for the do it yourself homeowner came later in the year.

• Japanese garden in a small yard
• Small backyard Japanese garden design (5 part series)
• Japanese Garden How to Book Suggestions

Don’t forget to take a look at my resource page on Japanese Garden Pruning which as of this writing is Google’s favorite webpage on the topic.

Just because I no longer work at a Japanese garden does not mean I will abandon it as a subject. Japanese gardens can teach us many things about creating garden spaces that help connect us with nature.  I look forward to exploring those in further depth with you in the coming years.