2024 March / Texas / International Japanese Garden Conference held in Fort Worth, TX

Report of North America Japanese Garden Association

From March 5-9, 2024, The North America Japanese Garden Association (NAJGA) held its 6th International Japanese Garden Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. The conference was hosted by the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and the Meiners’ Japanese Garden. The Meiners’ Japanese Garden is a private garden in Grand Prairie, Texas, 30 miles from Fort Worth.

NAJGA’s international conferences are the largest convening of Japanese garden professionals and enthusiasts outside of Japan. The 2024 conference brought together 184 participants from 6 countries: the United States, Japan, England, Canada, Australia, and Mexico.

The first two days of the conference, March 5 and 6, took place at the Meiners’ Japanese Garden. The program featured two programs: (1) intensive hands-on garden workshops on stone setting, carpentry, and tree transplanting as well as an (2) in-depth introduction to tea ceremony.

The garden workshops were led by eight garden designers/builders from both Japan and the United States. The tea workshop was led by Soyu Nabeta and Robert Hori. Ms. Nabeta is the highest ranking master tea teacher in North America and Robert Hori is Chair of Urasenke’s North American Advisory Body.

Concurrently, on March 6th, there were three programs at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden: (1) master planning, (2) interpretive program development, and (3) lectures on historical topics related to Japanese gardens.

Days 3 and 4 included 29 lectures and panel discussions with 50 presenters.

On the final day of the conference, March 9, participants had the choice of participating in a hands-on pine tree workshop in Weatherford, Texas or touring Dallas area garden and museum sites.

Conference participants included representatives from several NAJGA partners including: EuroJGA, Japanese Garden Society of UK, Garden Society of Japan, Academic Society of Japanese Gardens, and the Aesthetic Pruners Association.

During the conference NAJGA also honored important achievements in the field: K.T. Cannon-Eger (Hawaii) Lifetime Achievement Award: John Powell (Texas) Design/Build (Foster) Award: Larry Rosensweig (Florida) Leadership Award: Diane Durston (Oregon) Education/Curatorial Award: Diane Jones (Texas) Volunteerism Award

Results and Impact

At the end of the conference, participants were asked to complete a post-event survey. A total of 49 people completed a survey. On a scale of 1-5, participants rated their overall satisfaction and the likelihood they would attend a future NAJGA event at 4.7.

Of the 184 attendees, 33% were public garden staff, 29% were garden designers or other garden professionals, 22% were garden enthusiasts or supporters, 7% were public garden volunteers, 6% were private garden owners, 4% were academics.

Forty-two percent of survey respondents indicated that their top takeaway from the conference was connecting with others in the Japanese garden community. Other highly ranked outcomes were gaining a deeper understanding of the principles of the Japanese garden and hands-on learning opportunities.

The world-wide Japanese garden community continues to grow in numbers and capacity. Conference attendees expressed the desire to collaborate across borders to provide increased opportunities to share knowledge to ensure the sustainability of Japanese gardens and work together to transmit vital Japanese horticultural skills and knowledge from older generations to younger generations.

This grass-roots community continues to demonstrate its vitality and ability to bring Japanese gardens’ diverse constituents together to make a lasting contribution to the field of Japanese gardens.