Japanese Friendship Garden, San Jose CA

A few weeks ago I had the chance to escape cold and snowy Boston to spend a few days in warm, sunny, San Jose, California. One of the gardens we visited there was the Japanese Friendship Garden, in Kelley Park on the east side of town. It was such a pleasure to visit this beautiful spot with beautiful ponds, green grass, and blooming cherry trees.

The lower koi pond and the Japanese tea house near the entrance.

The garden had several different types of footbridges. This one featured discontinuous wooden planks. In other places, stepping stones were used.

There were fountains and islands in the pond, and huge fat healthy-looking koi. Signs were up explaining that the visitors should not feed the fish in the winter, but people were doing it anyway.

We found this waterfall early on. Later we made our way up to a higher pond that the waterfall was coming from. Then we found another pond - that one had a rushing stream running down to the lower pond. It was the kind of garden that always had something new to see around the next bend in the path.

On the right is an arching bridge in the upper koi pond. It leads to a small island planted with evergreens.

One of the plants in bloom was this Mahonia, also known as Oregon Grape-Holly. We have these in the Western garden at Garden in the Woods, but they never grow so lush and don't bloom until summertime. There were lots of benches in the garden. Some were near the ponds; others were placed on small mounds with a view of the garden or in groves of trees.

One of the interesting sculpted trees and a view of the cherry grove across a sweep of lawn.

Here's a short video of the lower pond.