Visit Oriental Gardens at Ashland High School

At Ashland High School located in northeastern Ohio, the community enjoys a string of oriental themed gardens. Since 1989, a wildlife garden, student memorials and the influences of Japanese gardens have developed into a highly valued public garden.

In 1997, the tragic deaths of five high school students became the catalyst for a memorial garden. This was the first attempt at adding Japanese ideas to the gardens. Today, Oriental garden rooms can be enjoyed from a winding sidewalk or by following the stepping-stone pathways.

Oriental Garden Landscape

Japanese influence in the Oriental garden is seen in principles such as the reproduction of the natural world in miniature, arrangement of plants and simplicity of design.

The first Oriental garden room has features, built by students, including the raked garden, a Shinto lantern and a tskubai water basin with a bamboo sprout-dripping fountain.

The stepping stone paths not only connect gardens but also are symbolic. The original path had seventeen stones south and fifteen stones north of the water basin, representing the students’ ages honored in the memorial. Seven stones lead directly to the water basin facing the crouching stone.

An Oriental tea garden connects space between the water garden and the original memorial garden. It has planted a green form Japanese maple. The water basin here is a coin fountain that has a square cup. Visitors to a crouching stone and water basin use them in renewal ceremonies.

Shinto Gate and Bell House in Garden

Two large additions to the Oriental garden are the Shinto gate and bell house, each accurately patterned after original designs. Both student projects included participation by landscape design and horticultural construction classes over two years.

The massive Shinto gate was designed to commemorate one left after the destruction of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. The Ashland Shinto gate was built of native Ohio woods, red elm at the top and white oak beneath. A perforated tile drainage system was installed under the gate to manage wet soils on the site.

The bell house and its temple bell is the newest addition to the Oriental garden. The temple bell is an authentic bronze bell made in Asia and was purchased with donations students collected. In this area, an Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’ is growing in memory of a former horticultural student.

Oriental Water Garden

The water garden is a demonstration of storm-water retention needs able to be incorporated into a home garden landscape. With the help of the Ashland Soil and Water Conservation District, students designed, built and planted an Oriental water garden.

It includes a stepping stone bridge and squiring fountain. The simple six inch hole drilled in a rock creates gentle water movement reflecting another principle of Japanese gardens.

Wildlife and Memorial Gardens

Behind the horticultural greenhouses, a concrete sidewalk starts visitors toward a series of garden vignettes connecting one end of the school to the other. Here one finds a peaceful garden landscape that tells the story of students who have come before and left their mark.

In 1989, the original garden was created as an educational exercise in growing deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs to attract wildlife. It was then that horticultural instructors, Eric Mayer and Daniel Rueger, guided students in developing a wildlife habitat with open corridors enabling birds to travel among plantings. Now, one can see a pair of rare rough winged swallows returning each year and wren houses filled with talkative feathered creatures.

At Ashland High School horticulture curriculum is valued for the life lessons as well as practical skills learned. Over the years, the Oriental gardens have been a laboratory of learning for many students in science, mathematics and reading. For all visitors, Ashland High School’s Oriental public garden is a quiet place to contemplate one’s future while remembering the past.