Horticulturalist, Garden Designer and part owner of Barakura English Garden
Kay Yamada, who was originally a floral designer created a fashion brand named “Rosy Life” in 1970. All her designs were inspired from Barakura English Garden.
When traveling to Europe with her family in search of inspiration for “Rosy Life” they were fascinated by the beauty of English gardens. It was a natural chain of events that led them to decide to create an English-style garden in Japan. As the garden was to be authentic, it was decided English designers and gardeners would need to be involved. Thus the garden was designed by John Brookes with other famous plantsmen and horticulturalists from Britain. In 1990 the first authentic English garden was opened in Nagano.
Kay is also well known for her writing and editing of several books, lecturing to English/Japanese gardening enthusiasts and has had regular TV appearances for English style garden shows in Japan. Also, Kay has supervised articles in several magazine series such as “Katei-Ga-Hou” and “Bises”. And this March her latest book named “The Textbook of Container Gardening” was just published. So far Kay has designed 6 public English gardens in Japan.
In 2001 Kay with her family were invited to Buckingham Palace to participate in the Queens garden party. Two representatives were invited from each country and they were chosen due to achievement of having introduced English gardens and culture to Japan by taking major parts in events such as ‘UK98’.
In 2002 Kay exhibited her show garden “Reflection on a Tateshina Meadow” at the Chelsea Flower Show and won the silver guilt medal.
In 2003 Kay also exhibited her show garden “Lace and Tapestry” and again won a silver medal.
In 2009, her third show garden “Echoes of Japan in an English garden” was exhibited. That year was the year of Japan-UK 150 in which a series of related events were held in the UK to celebrate the alliance between the two countries. As part of these events and the campaign called “Yokoso! Japan! (visit Japan campaign)” Kay Yamada designed her show garden fusing elements of English and Japanese gardens together in a modern way.
