Japanese Garden, Newquay, Cornwall, is an authentic Japanese garden in a 1 acre setting. There is plenty of colour in their traditional Water garden, Zen garden, Japanese maples, Bamboo Grove, azaleas, tea house and ornamental grasses. There is a charge for the Japanese Garden, but the Bonsai nursery beside it can be visited separately without charge.
The Zen garden itself, a "sea" of stone chippings that flow around larger rocks, in the Zen Buddhist tradition. The chippings are raked every day to create an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
Zen is about mindfulness and transcending one's karmic ties. Zen is a path to the experience of spiritual awareness and not a philosophy or particular religion, and this garden has truly captured its essence.
There is a walk-through bamboo grove, with a quaint water feature made out of bamboo, the sound of which seems to mask the other sounds around..
There is a larger pond with golden carp that can be seen from a small pagoda and a typical Japanese bridge.
Many of the features commonly associated with traditional Japanese gardens are to be found around the water garden area, including the shishi-odoshi [deer scarer], stone lanterns, tsukubai [water basin], bonsai and, of course, the waterfalls, ponds, bridges, islands and Teahouse.
The tea ceremony is essentially a ritual to cleanse the mind and induce inner peace. In accordance with tradition the teahouse is a simple wooden structure with a bamboo-thatched roof and sparsely decorated interior. However they have also incorporated the remaining stone walls of an old barn, and by leaving the walls open on two sides allow views of the garden.
Visitors to the Japanese Garden can also buy plants like bonsai trees, bamboo etc in the garden shop.