Japanese garden, Sute-ishi

Various kinds of rocks are used in the Japanese gardens, always carefully selected and sometimes brought from hundreds of kilometers away, in order to perfectly match with the garden's landscape. For example, to maintain harmony and prevent strong contrasts, the rocks with strong colors are never used...

Besides the rocks with functional utility (paths, lanterns or islands), the most interesting are those called sute-ishi (which can be translated as "nameless" or "discarded rocks"). As their name suggests, these rocks seem to be dumped randomly, but of course, the randomness is the result of painstaking planning... One of the most famous garden where you can admire such sute-ishi is the Koraku-en in Okayama, photographed here...