A group of Japanese landscape designers led by Masao Fukuhara, associate professor at the Osaka University of Arts, celebrated Tuesday after winning the top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show, Britain's premier horticultural event.
The prizewinning work, titled "A Real Japanese Garden," blended three Japanese gardening styles -- tea garden, dry garden, and pond and spring garden -- to capture the Best Show award, the show category's highest prize and the annual event's top accolade.
"The garden won for a number of reasons," a Chelsea Flower Show judge said. "We were particularly impressed that the designers tackled three different types of garden within one design, and we were also impressed by the quality of the Japanese maples.
"Overall, it was beautifully executed, not just in concept. The idea was carried through in every detail."
Bringing the Japanese garden to London marked the culmination of a yearlong effort by the Team for the Japanese Garden 2001, a Japanese horticultural group that paired with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph to sponsor the project.
The show opened to the public Tuesday. After the show winds up on Friday, the garden will become a permanent fixture at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.