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  • Straight & Narrow® Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata ‘PIIIC-I’

    20% off
    (2)
    $6674 $8342

  • Sky Pencil Holly

    Ilex crenata 'Sky Pencil'

    Up to 30% off
    (22)
    From $2559

  • Japanese Red Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Atropurpureum'

    (13)
    From $6837

  • Inaba Shidare Japanese Maple

    Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Inaba Shidare'

    (35)
    From $18465

  • Coral Bark Japanese Maple

    Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku'

    (9)
    From $8736

  • Tamukeyama Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Tamukeyama'

    (10)
    $13849

  • Well's Special Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Well's Special’

    (2)
    $9266

  • Fernspray Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Filicoides'

    $10190

  • Glow Pop Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'NCIC1'

    $2759

  • Chubby Hubby™ Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'MAD-IC-I' PP32,035

    (1)
    $9307

  • Just Chill® Double Pink Camellia

    Camellia hiemalis 'FL-CP-1'

    $2691

  • Dorothy Wycoff Pieris

    Pieris japonica 'Dorothy Wycoff'

    (1)
    From $10023

  • Soft Touch Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'Soft Touch'

    (2)
    $2967

  • Drops Of Gold Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'Drops of Gold'

    $8459

  • Pieris Mountain Fire

    Pieris japonica 'Mountain Fire'

    (7)
    $9291

  • Katsura Pieris

    Pieris japonica 'Katsura'

    From $10939

  • Dwarf Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana'

    $13237
  • Gulf Stream Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica 'Gulf Stream'), a shrub featuring white flowers and broad-leaved evergreen.

    Gulf Stream Heavenly Bamboo

    Nandina domestica 'Gulf Stream'

    (1)
    $2947

  • Contorted Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Contorta'

    $13237

  • Tempelhof Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Tempelhof'

    $13237
  • Product image coming soon

    Passion Lily of the Valley Shrub

    Pieris japonica 'Passion'

    $11089

  • Golden Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Crippsii'

    Sold out
    $5953

  • Samurai Sword™ Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Samarzam'

    Sold out
    $16039

  • Just Chill® Double White Camellia

    Camellia x 'FARROWCJWD' PP#36,304

    Sold out
    $2663

  • Cryptomeria Yoshino Japanese Cedar

    Cryptomeria japonica 'Yoshino'

    Sold out
    (23)
    $20968
  • Tsuma Gaki Japanese Maple

    Tsuma Gaki Japanese Maple Tree

    Acer palmatum 'Tsuma Gaki'

    Sold out
    $12002

  • Metamorphosa® Japanese Maple

    Acer palmatum ''ARJOS1'' USPP 32,420

    Sold out
    New arrival
    (2)
    From $2863

  • Compact Hinoki False Cypress

    Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Compacta'

    Sold out
    $8604

  • Sky Box™ Japanese Holly

    Ilex crenata 'Farrowone'

    Sold out
    $2649

  • Interstella® Lily of the Valley Shrub

    Pieris japonica 'Interstella'

    Sold out
    (1)
    $2649

Japanese Garden Plants

Japanese garden plants are chosen for structure and restraint rather than flower color: an evergreen backbone, layered branching, and a few deliberate accents. This page collects the plants Nature Hills Nursery carries that fit that discipline, including Japanese maple, Japanese cedar, Hinoki false cypress, Japanese black pine, and Pieris japonica.

Start with the evergreen backbone

The frame of a Japanese garden is green in every month, so the evergreens go in first and everything else is placed against them. Hinoki false cypress and Japanese cedar both suit zones 5 through 8 and hold a dense, layered outline. Umbrella pine works in the same range with a coarser whorled texture, and Pieris japonica fills the lower layer with broadleaf green while taking more shade than either conifer.

Plants that hold a deliberate shape

This style leans on plants that keep the form given to them. Japanese black pine is the archetype, held to open layered pads that leave the trunk line visible. Hinoki false cypress opens into flat fans that already look arranged. Japanese cedar holds a dense shaggy mass that reads as one green shape from across a small garden. Nandina does the opposite job, upright canes with airy foliage that keep a corner from going solid.

Scale for a small space

Most of these gardens are small, so mature size decides more than anything. The dwarf forms here settle between 1 and 4 feet and suit a courtyard, an entry, or a gravel bed. The upright pines and cedars run 10 to 20 feet and need to be placed as single trees with open ground around them, not packed into a border.

Color used sparingly

Green carries the garden, with the blue-green of Japanese black pine as the quiet variation. Gold and creamy white variegation works, but one accent per view is the discipline. Camellia adds a few weeks of red, pink, or white bloom in zone 7 and warmer, and a Japanese maple gives the single stretch of red or orange in fall. That is usually enough.

Choose the evergreens for your zone first, then place one accent.

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