Thirty years ago, in an extraordinarily progressive move, Japanese media entrepreneur Mitsushige Hayashi bought 400 hectares of land in Shimizu, in the Tokachi region of Hokkaido, with the aim of offsetting the carbon footprint of his national newspaper business, Tokachi Mainichi.

Ten years later he invited internationally respected British landscape designer, Dan Pearson, to help design an ecological public park on the site, the purpose of which was to entice town and city dwellers to reconnect with nature and to preserve and improve a piece of land that had been lost to intensive forestry and agriculture. With the aim of safeguarding this place for a thousand years Mr Hayashi named it the Millennium Forest. This project is at the heart of the book Tokachi Millennium Forest: Pioneering a New Way of Gardening with Nature (Filbert Press, 2020), co-written by Pearson and Midori Shintani, Head Gardener at Tokachi Millennium Forest.

In this talk, the two authors will discuss the design and development of the forest and gardens with acclaimed British garden designer and writer Sophie Walker, who visited Tokachi in 2015 when researching The Japanese Garden (Phaidon, 2017). Together they will look at how traditional Japanese cultural practices have guided and influenced the process from nature worship and animism, the Japanese calendar of 72 seasons, the concept of satoyama as a guiding principle in the forest, and the use of traditional Japanese garden design methods such as shakkei, the borrowed view. They will also discuss how a very naturalistic strand of European garden and planting design which prizes respect for nature and ecology came to find a new natural home in Japan.

Date: Thursday 20 May 2021

UK Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm (BST)
Japan Time: 8:00pm-9:30pm (GMT+9)

About the contributors

Dan Pearson is a British landscape designer, horticulturalist, writer and gardener. His work is characterised by an innate sensitivity to place, an intuitive and light-handed approach to design, bold and painterly naturalistic plantings, and deep-rooted horticultural knowledge. He trained in horticulture at RHS Garden Wisley, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He lectures and broadcasts regularly and has written a number of books. For over 20 years he wrote a weekly newspaper gardening column, most recently for The Observer. He now writes his own weekly blog, Dig Delve.

Midori Shintani is Head Gardener at Tokachi Millennium Forest. She trained in horticulture and landscape architecture at Minami Kyushu University, Japan. In 2002 she moved to Sweden and trained to become a gardener at Millesgården and Rosendals Trädgård. In 2004 she moved back to Japan and worked at a garden design company and perennial nursery gaining experience in both traditional and modern styles. Since 2008 she has been the Head Gardener of Tokachi Millenium Forest, merging ‘new Japanese horticulture’ into wild nature. She also writes and lectures widely.

Sophie Walker (Chair) is a horticulturalist based in UK who makes gardens internationally. In 2014 Sophie became the youngest woman to design a garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show with Cave Pavilion, sponsored by the Garden Museum, London. Her acclaimed book, The Japanese Garden, was published by Phaidon in October 2017. In her writing, Sophie offers fresh insight into the conceptual and philosophical ambition of the Japanese garden and its abstract nature. This comprehensive publication features 92 of Japan’s finest gardens, ranging from historic shrine gardens to contemporary urban designs. Aside from the designing and making of gardens, Sophie also lectures on conceptual garden design and on the Japanese garden.

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