Daily 8am and 5:30 pm (closes 5pm April to August)
Bonsai House is open 10am to 12noon, 1pm to 3pm weekdays and 10am to 3pm weekends.
Gates are closed to vehicle access at 4.00 pm and on weekends.
Admission:
Added to JGarden:
2/18/2002
Last Updated:
4/6/2003
Sources:
web site
JGarden Description:
This Japanese Garden opened in February 1989 after being successfully moved from its previous home outside the Japan Pavilion at Brisbane's World Expo 88.
The theme of the garden is tsuki - yama - chisen or 'mountain' - 'pond' - 'stream'. Above the entrance are three Japanese characters that invite the visitor to "come into the garden and enjoy the blue of the water and the green of the trees".
This stroll garden includes stone, water, and vegetative elements interspersed along a winding path. The garden manages to use primarily local plant material but maintains a Japanese touch. It is run by the local City Council and was a gift donated by the Japanese government.
The 52 hectare complex contains an extensive collection of native and exotic plants of over 20,000 plants representing approximately 5000 species from around the world and includes Temperate, Bamboo, Herb, Bromeliad, Arid, Rain Forest, Tropical, Bonsai and other speciality gardens. The site is located about 8km from the city centre (about a 15 minute drive). Alternatively catch bus 471 from the bus stop on Adelaide Street (at Albert Street, Commonwealth Bank) in the City or the Great City Circle bus 598 or 599 from various suburbs.
There is also a botanical/horticultural library, an education centre, a botanical laboratory, a 200 seat auditorium, the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium and the Queensland Herbarium.
Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto
Only in the cloister
Could such a garden thrive, a soil where nature
Flowers in spiritual dryness,
Drawing an interior nurture
From sand and rock.
Where the labyrinth of illusion
No longer entangles the senses
Enmeshing vision in delusive lusters;
Where the lust of the eyes is silenced
And desire of forms, and names of forms,
Move to no visible end.
Those who planted here
Sowed no ephemeral seed
For the seasonal tempests to scatter,
But the silent root that ripens in detachment,
Flowers in renunciation.
Gardeners of eternity,
Those who planted here
Framed the garden in the image of a desert
And the desert in the image of a sea --
Then shrunk the seas to the mind's salt and, tasting,
Dissolved all thought away.
On these rocks no water breaks. Without attrition
Tides and currents in this ocean rest and revolve
In a void of sound, vortex of sand; perpetual
Circles enmesh and paralyzed sea and air:
The effigy of time and measure
Purged of time and measure
Becalmed on this dead sea of being
No wave moves, no wind of desire
Flexes the indolent sail.
But focussing its single eye
On dreamless immobility
The gulf like a burnished mirror
Regards the empty void.
In this dead sea of vision the surges
Merge without movement; the tides
Indifferent to flood and ebb
Freeze in a flux of haste.
The seagull without motion
Broods on the changeless waste,
Then sinks, his feathers frozen,
In a sand ocean.
Frail caravels who sail
This subtle gulf, morte mer,
Who stir with urgent keel
The fossil waters of the Great Mirage,
Or steer by lodestone to delusive ports:
In this calm beyond stasis, dead calm,
No compass points to the land,
No magnet of attachment
Guides the helmsman's hand
Through fifteen naked rocks in raked and rhythmic sand.
Here is no sea for the admirals,
The whalers, the merchants of cargoes --
Those finite venturers for the temporal haven.
These depths are destination,
And naufrage sweeter than harbor.
Shipwreck is haven on this inland sea.
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/community_facilities/parks_gardens/gardens/