Nikka Yuko Centennial Garden
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Nikka Yuko Centennial Garden is located in Henderson Park near the heart of Lethbridge, Alberta, within easy reach from any point in the city, the Nikka Yuko Japan-Canada Friendship Garden is an artist's interpretation of the perfection of nature.
The Nikka Yuko Garden was built with the skills of Japan's designers to capture a deeply rooted sense which finds expression in this most unique form of the gardening art.
The Garden displays a Japanese landscape concept. A considerable range of hardy woody plant material is used in the landscape. Emphasis is on the meandering line and irregular curve as found in nature. This is demonstrated in the Dry Garden, Mountain and Waterfall Streams, Ponds and Islands, and Flat or Prairie Gardens.
Water, or its simulated form in sand, is the central feature of the Nikka Yuko, as in all Japanese landscape gardens. Trees are primarily conifers and may be trained to graceful lines. Stones and rocks are used liberally, either in representation of their natural form, or symbolically to suggest other aspects of a setting such as mountains, waterfalls or islands set in seas or oceans.
Nikka Yuko is a Japanese garden designed to appeal to the heart as well as the eye. The City of Lethbridge does not maintain an herbarium or seed exchange, though they do collect seeds for some provincial operations. Some hardy plant testing and a small collection are at the Canadian Government Research Station in Lethbridge, and some plant testing takes place at the Provincial Horticultural Research Station at Brooks, Alberta.
