COURTESY OF KUBOTA GARDENS

Fujitaro Kubota followed a traditional formula of 70 percent evergreens, 30 percent deciduous trees in planning the gardens that bear his name. The mix makes fall an especially great time for enjoying the scene.

The trail of ants
Continues all the way down
From the peaks of
The clouds
-Issa

The poem of the month greets visitors to South Seattle's Kubota Gardens, setting the tone for an immersion into 20 acres of plantings orchestrated in the Japanese manner. This time of year, deciduous foliage creates a blaze of color amid the tranquility of the evergreens.

The mature trees and lush hillsides are a surprise in Rainier Beach, right off Renton Avenue South, as is the sheer size of the garden. "This is the size of an Imperial garden in Japan," points out head gardener Don Brooks, who says visitors from Japan are always awestruck that one family could have owned and created such a place.

The garden belonged to the Kubota family until the City of Seattle bought it in 1987 for a million dollars. Fujitaro Kubota found the property in 1927, lured to it by the topography of hills and valleys as well as the natural springs he channeled into a series of waterfalls and ponds. A self-taught gardener, Fujitaro ran a landscaping business that is now owned and operated by his son and grandson. He designed and built many private gardens in our area as well as the Japanese garden at Bloedel Reserve, and is credited with the fusion of Eastern and Western styles we now recognize as uniquely Northwest. This property in South Seattle was his home, a demonstration garden for his clients and a source of nursery stock for his business.

In an attempt to explain why there is such a mix of plants, people call Kubota an American Japanese garden. Fujitaro didn't worry if a plant was authentically Japanese (hence the use of colored conifers) but rather worked to display the beauty of the Northwest through his Japanese perspective. This he did ravishingly, creating scenes of mossy boulders overhung with lacy Japanese maples, undulating clipped hedges of holly, yew and cedar, and a necklace of ponds and bridges criss-crossing a hillside of conifers. The garden is both restful and dramatic, no more so than in the Forest of Dancing Pines, where the wavy, rough trunks of dozens of pines weave and wind to create a palpable rhythm.

Now In Bloom The purpleleaf grape (Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea') produces unpalatable fruit, but its foliage display is so dramatic it doesn't matter. A vigorous vine that prefers full sun, its wide-lobed leaves come on dark purple in spring, fade to more of a green in summer, then turn a vivid plum-purple in autumn.

You won't find a single plant tag in the garden — Fujitaro concentrated on the feeling he could create with plants and didn't worry about their names. His son Tom, now 83 and on the Kubota Gardens Board, smiles when he tells the story of how people used to ask his father the names of the plants. Fujitaro would answer "I don't know" in Japanese, while his questioners diligently wrote down what they thought was the Japanese name of the plant.

A classic plant ratio in Japanese garden design is 70 percent evergreen and 30 percent deciduous, and despite the maverick nature of most of Fujitaro's work, he followed this formula fairly closely at Kubota Gardens. Now is the time to see the formula's effectiveness, as the golds, reds and oranges of Japanese maple, enkianthus and dogwoods stand out against the backdrop of cypresses, cedars, spruces and more than 200 pines. These large and beautifully shaped conifers, many of them in colors from steely blue to glowing yellow, are the true treasures of the garden. Even the plantings of hydrangeas and impatiens can't take away from the authenticity of a stark stone lantern beneath a pine perfectly pruned for decades.

"This garden has led a charmed life," says Brooks, who has gardened here for 14 years. The family was able to hang on to their beloved property through the Depression and even internment during World War II. Later they fought off the threat of condo development, achieving historic-landmark status in 1981. Now weddings are held nearly every weekend on the vast meeting lawn, and a new ornamental wall and entry gate (designed by Gerard Tsutakawa) as well as a Cultural and Visitor Center are planned for the garden's 75th birthday in 2002. In the meantime, there is no better place in the city to enjoy the intensity of fall color, once on the glorious hillsides and valleys and again reflected in the ponds and streams of this historic garden.

The Kubota Gardens, at Renton Avenue South and 55th Avenue South, is open daily during daylight hours and is free of charge. For further information, including tour and volunteer work-party dates, call the Kubota Garden Foundation at 206-725-5060.

Valerie Easton is a horticultural librarian and writes about plants and gardens for Pacific Northwest magazine. She is the co-author of "Artists in Their Gardens" from Sasquatch Books. Her e-mail address is vjeaston@aol.com.