A Winter Walk Through the Japanese Garden

While many city-dwellers might be noticing a serious lack of snow this season, winter finally arrived at Chicago Botanic Garden last week.

The first significant snowfall of the season gave the Garden a perfect white coat for winter. What better reason for a walk through the Malott Japanese Garden?

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Many consider winter to be the Japanese Garden’s most beautiful season. Its design emphasizes nature’s forms like clouds, stones and hills. In winter, pruned magnolias, azaleas, forsythia, quince, as well as smooth lumps of yews and junipers, resemble white boulders or fluffy clouds. Open-pruned pines, wired to maximize long and borrowed views, are natural snow catchers, offering up their own cushions of snow. Even the lanterns are designed to catch and display light snowfall.

To learn more about celebrating winter in Japanese culture, be sure to check out the Three Friends of Winter show, held at the end of January each year. 


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