Say 'Wabi Sabi'

And revel in the unpredictable wonders of our garden worlds

GET THIS: Imperfection, messiness, decline and decay aren't mistakes, problems or anything you should get busy doing something about. Actually, they're an art form.

Wabi sabi is an ancient Japanese art that revels in the transitory and elevates the humble. Can you think of a better concept to keep firmly in mind when looking out the windows at a garden in the dead of winter? This is an aesthetic that finds sweetness in melancholy, simplicity and restraint. Wabi sabi is all about change, and nowhere do we experience this more than in our gardens, which alter with every passing cloud, rain shower, gust of wind and shift of season.

Maybe I'm taking so much pleasure in the wabi sabi spirit because it strikes me as an ideal antidote to the pretentious, fancy, embellished and mega-sized so ubiquitous today. But the concept is so Zen-like as to be nearly indefinable. "Wabi sabi is an aesthetic philosophy so intangible and shrouded in centuries of mystery that even the most ambitious Japanese scholars would give it a wide berth," writes Andrew Juniper in "Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence" (Tuttle Publishing, $12.95), which is the most intelligible book I could find on the subject.

Here's what is so endearing: In wabi sabi, irregularities are good things that bestow character and ensure modesty. The tea ceremony, Japanese garden design, haiku and flower arranging have all been inspired by wabi sabi. It's also what has kept them subtle and intimate arts.

The spirit of wabi sabi lies in nature's unadorned truths, something we touch every time we dig in the soil, harvest a tomato or turn the mulch pile. Gardeners are realists, made that way by working with the ebb and flow of the life force in the plants we tend. We think of this as science; wabi sabi reminds us that it is art. "Rooted firmly in Zen thought, wabi sabi art uses the evanescence of life to convey the sense of melancholic beauty that such an understanding brings," writes Juniper.

A love of the unconventional is a big part of wabi sabi, and especially relevant to garden design. The Zen monks had quite a radical world view, not for the sake of being unconventional but because they believed different viewpoints stimulated different ways of perceiving art. How freeing is that? Where better than the garden to experiment, mess about, and personalize while testing perceptions? Wabi sabi prizes mystery and intrigue; when you step outside your back door into the garden you're submerged in the ambiguity nature offers every day.

How comforting to relax into it rather than try to control it.

Other wabi sabi principles, such as attention to detail and a desire for simplicity and balance, serve the garden designer well.

This tradition also addresses the current buzz of sustainability. There's a Japanese expression that someone who makes poor quality things is worse than a thief, because these things don't last or provide true satisfaction. Durable elements that last in nature as well as in the heart of the gardener won't need replacing for a very long time.

Along with the great gift of allowing the gardener imperfection, wabi sabi assigns him or her a soothingly limited role. "The gardener sets the scene and provides the potential," Juniper writes, "but having done this, he must retire and rely on the sensitivity of the garden visitor as a springboard to grasping the eternal truths etched throughout."

I wish you a new year of finding comfort in your imperfect garden, as well as visitors who appreciate all the richness to be found in a flawed, wabi sabi landscape.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.