10 Best Japanese Garden Plants

Japanese Garden connects with nature and brings the human spirit to calmness and peacefulness. This garden has a very attractive image and creates an oasis of calm where you can get out of your hustle and bustle life. The main design elements of pebbles, rocks, boulders, water, stoves, lanterns, and bridges, which are natural materials. The most crucial aspect, however, is the plants. So, in the post today, we will share the 10 best plants to grow in your Japanese garden.

Growing them will bring the harmonic peace of a traditional Japanese garden in your own backyard. Also, they have a wide range of great elements that make them fit in with the overall concept of Japanese gardens. For example, they are evergreen perennials and have an overall harmonic shape or harmonic shapes of trunk and branches. They have stylish foliage or flowers and have a peaceful presence. If you want to grow a Japanese garden, it’s time to consider the plants. Keep reading and explore them.

#1 Bamboo

Source: Hunker

Bamboo is a tall treelike grass that grows well in planting zones 5 -10. There are dwarf varieties that work great as groundcover and types that grow to over 30-feet tall when mature, and you can grow them for your small Japanese garden.

#2 Japanese Maple

Source: Plantingtree

Japanese Maple does well in zones 5 to 8. There are dwarf varieties to those that grow to be over 25-feet tall. In late spring, its tiny flowers will appear.

#3 Lotus

Source: Japantravelmate

Lotus is the best water flower for your Japanese garden. This flower comes in a variety of colors.

#4 Camellia (Camellia Japonica)

Source: Gardenia

Camellia blooms in shades of pinks and reds mostly but also can be found in yellow and white options. It prefers little light so when planting it, let’s choose a place where it is not in full sun.

#5 Peonies

Source: Southernpeony

Peonies grow well in zones 3 to 8. It has a long blooming time from mid-spring throughout much of the summer.

#6 Japanese Water Iris

Source: Gardenia

Japanese Water Iris grows from zones 4 to 9. It displays sword-shaped leaves that can be 24-inches long. This flower comes in single, double, and peony-type options in a variety of colors, including blue, lavender, violet-red, pink, and white. Its blooming time lasts in early to middle summer.

#7 Wisteria

Source: Hgvt

Wisteria offers green leaves with 11-to-19 leaflets in the spring that turn vibrant yellow in the fall. Its violet pea-type flowers appear in clusters long mid-spring and last throughout the summer.

#8 Japanese Boxwood

Source: Cypresscreeklandscapesupply

Japanese Boxwood displays small but glossy, round, and thick green leaves that will keep your Japanese garden lush even in winter. It grows best in most types of soil but sure well-drained and to full shade places.

#9 Japanese Black Pine

Source: Thespruce

Japanese Black Pine is often used as a bonsai tree and can grow up to 100-feet tall. In the spring, it shows off inconspicuous flowers hidden by the trees’ dark evergreen needles before it produces pinecones that mature to be about 3-inches long.