Gardens of ancient Nippon exist only in our literature, and their main characteristic seems to have been a lake with an island connected by bridges. So marked was the characteristic that originally the garden was called shima, or island. It was recorded that there was held in the reign of the Emperor Kenso (485-7), a kyoku-sui-no-yen, a sort of literary party held along the winding stream in a garden, after the custom established in ancient China. It is also recorded that in an Imperial garden cherries and lespedeza bicolor were planted, that in a pond of another was kept a red tortoise donated by the Province of Suwo, and that on the bank of a pond in another garden were planted plum and willow trees. However, as the custom of changing the seat of the Imperial Court at the death of each Emperor prevailed, one could not hope to find any substantial improvement of our gardens before the capital was first established in 710 in Nara, where seven successive Emperors ruled. Like other branches of art, gardens too have developed in Nara, where many beautiful ones were created. Records speak of Shorin-yen (Pine-Grove-Garden), South-Garden and West-Garden, all belonging to Emperor Shomu (724-748), each of these gardens having a pond with an isle in it. References are also made to the gardens of noblemen as having had cherries, pines, plums, willows, chrysanthemums, orchids, orange, peach, wisteria, lespedeza bicolor, carnations, etc.
