The short answer
About 120 kinds of moss carpet its grounds, moss being the one garden material that cannot be installed, only awaited. Saiho-ji in Kyoto is a World Heritage site and a Special Place of Scenic Beauty, and visiting requires an advance application, online or by return postcard.
Saiho-ji: The Moss Temple
Moss is the slowest material in Japanese gardens — it cannot be installed, only awaited.
At Saiho-ji in Kyoto, known as the Moss Temple, about 120 kinds of moss carpet the grounds. It is a World Heritage site and a Special Place of Scenic Beauty, and visiting requires an advance application (online or by return postcard).
This green took centuries to grow
This green took centuries to grow.
Nothing else in a garden has that timescale. Stones are placed, sand is raked and pines are trained, but moss has to be waited for — which makes it the one element a designer cannot deliver.
Moss: the garden's slowest material
Moss: the slowest material in the garden.
It also cannot be forced. Moss needs shade, damp and stillness, so the way to grow it is to arrange those conditions and then leave the ground alone for a very long time.
Saiho-ji: the Moss Temple
Saiho-ji, Kyoto — the Moss Temple.
The nickname has displaced the name, which tells you what people come for. Kokedera means moss temple, and that is what the site is called even in official material.
About 120 kinds of moss
About 120 kinds of moss carpet the grounds.
That is a species count, not a measure of abundance. What it describes is a habitat that assembled itself once the conditions were right, rather than a planting scheme somebody drew.
A World Heritage site wrapped in silence
A World Heritage site, wrapped in silence.
The listing and the quiet are connected. Visitor numbers are limited by the application system, which is what allows a garden this famous to stay this still.
Entry: advance application only
Entry is by advance application only.
Applications are taken online or by return postcard, which is an unusually analogue requirement for a World Heritage site. It is also the mechanism that controls the crowd.
Every shade of green
The reward: green in every shade you can name.
Moss reads as one color from a distance and separates into many up close. That is the reason to walk this garden slowly rather than to photograph it quickly.
Moss can't be installed. Only awaited.
Moss cannot be installed. Only awaited.
The series thesis, in its most patient form. Every other technique here is an act of composition; this one is an act of not interfering, sustained across generations of keepers.
Some pages take 100 years to write
Some pages of a garden take a hundred years to write.
If a garden is a sentence, moss is the part written by time rather than by the gardener. Nobody now working at Saiho-ji planted what visitors come to see.
The thread through Gardens
Japan does not impose a garden on nature. It compresses nature until you can read it.
Next: the garden ranked best in Japan — 23 years straight.
Sources — primary only
Original Japanese source note
西芳寺(京都市西京区)=約120種の苔(京都府公式・京都市観光Navi)、国の特別名勝・史跡、世界文化遺産。参拝は事前申込制でオンラインまたは往復はがき(西芳寺公式)