Fort Worth’s Japanese Garden Turns 50

You can’t help but feel like you’ve traveled to another country entirely when you enter the 50-year-old entrance to the Fort Worth Japanese Garden. This lush 7.5-acre garth located on the west side of the Fort Worth Botanical Garden boasts an otherworldly view of bamboo, cherry trees, and ponds filled with koi fish.

In fact, this was my first impression of the garden when I first entered 4^th Grade during a class field trip. I had the same nostalgic feeling when I walked through the iconic entrance earlier this month for the Japanese Garden’s 50th anniversary. And although many things have changed over the more than 20 years since I first passed through this foliage-filled sanctuary, it still took me back to my youth. And he wasn’t alone in this thought either, Eric Painter, son of Henry Painter, former director of the Botanical Garden, says he used to play in the Japanese Garden as a child.

“Climbing the Japanese moon bridge took many tries,” he joked while giving a speech on behalf of his father for the garden’s 50th anniversary. “The checkerboard deck and feeding a koi fish called Hot Lips was a must, every time I visited the tea house.”

But long before this space turned into the quiet garden it is today, it also had to go through many years of changes. In fact, the Japanese Garden is located on what was once a gravel pit and a cavalry unit dump full of old plumbing and stable contents before plans to change this space into a garden began in the years 1960. The property was purchased in 1963 and designed in 1968 by Kingsley Wu, with staff from the Fort Worth Park and Recreation Department completing ponds, waterfalls and spillways.

Former city parks director Charles Campbell along with former garden director Scott Fikes brought in Fort Worth architect Al Komatsu to help make plans in 1968. Komatsu said he was immediately drawn to it. from this plot of land because of its unique topography. At the heart of the landscape is a system of ponds, surrounded by hills and closed by a network of interconnected paths, pavilions, bridges and bridges. As the name implies, the garden unfolds as an ever-changing series of landscape perspectives to the visitors who walk through these streets.

The garden itself was built in the tradition of the promenade gardens of the Edo period, which integrates many Japanese styles of garden design into a single landscape. Examples of this include the mountain and the pond, the dry landscape, the tea garden and many enclosed gardens. Later editions include the Suzuki Garden, the Moriarty Garden, the Koshi House, the treasure tree gift shop, and the walkway. And although there are many plants indigenous to Fort Worth found in the garden, many of the plants and the architectural design where in fact a gift from our sister city Nagaoka, Japan.

In the late 1990s, with the guidance and design of Komatsu and the support of the Botanical Society of Fort Worth, a bridal room and facilities were added for weddings. In the early 2000s, the Japanese Garden greatly expanded wheelchair access and built an overhead walkway.

“The Japanese Garden has been and continues to be a distinctive and sacred place for generations of Fort Worth people that has held countless weddings, engagements, [and] photoshoots that create emotional memories,” says Richard Zavala, director of parks and community services for the city of Fort Worth.

The current day-to-day maintenance of the Japanese Garden falls to horticulture manager Nick Esthus, who has overseen the garden’s needs for seven years.

“It’s a lot of effort,” Esthus says of the day-to-day maintenance he oversees. “It’s a lot of thinking seasonally about our schedule and anticipating the weather conditions we’re going to have and other events we’re going to host.”

Another aspect that helped give Esthus a better understanding of this garden was his attendance at a two-week seminar in Kyoto, Japan.

“[The seminar] covering the theory of Japanese garden design and looking at old gardens,” he says. “I mean there are very specific things that I’ve learned over the years, but I really learn from a lot of trial and error as well.”

When asked what his favorite spot in the garden is, Esthus says the middle island and the recently renovated moon deck come to mind.

“This bridge is so iconic for the garden and to be able to be a part of the restoration of it and then the path on the island and a kind of reform of that landscape, this is probably some of the work of which I am more proud.”