Japanese Garden at JC Raulston Arboretum

Name: Japanese Garden at JC Raulston Arboretum

Open to the public? Yes

County: Wake

Address (if public): JC Raulston Arboretum, NC State University, 4415 Beryl Road, Raleigh, NC 27606-1446

Link to the public garden map

Website: https://jcra.ncsu.edu/horticulture/gardens/details.php?name=japanese-garden

USDA Hardiness Zone: 8a (2023)

Extension Demonstration Garden? No

Approximate year the garden/landscape was established:

What to look for: The Japanese Garden at JC Raulston Arboretum is one of many theme gardens designed and built by students, faculty, staff, and the green industry of North Carolina. The garden contains a wide array of Japanese plants and a large, raked-stone Zen garden of contemplation.

Visitors cross a traditional wooden bridge constructed in a zigzag pattern, designed to keep evil spirits out. Continuing through mounded plantings, visitors soon emerge into an enclosed Zen garden of contemplation. From a viewing deck, several magnificent plant specimens are evident across a "sea" of raked stone. The scale of these plants is designed to provide an illusion of being on a faraway distant shore. All structures in the Japanese garden were built with respect for the wood in the true spirit of a Zen Garden, using only handcrafted construction without power tools.