The Anniversary Garden

In 1983/4, with Japan Government funding, a garden was created for the Liverpool International Garden Festival. So well constructed and authentic was the garden that, at the end of the LIGF'84, the garden was gifted to the people of Liverpool as a permanent link with the people of Japan. By 2010, the garden and surrounding land was in such a sorry state that European Union funding was used to renovate parts of the site and a partial restoration of the Japanese garden. The original designer was flown over from Japan and the garden, along with the rest of Festival Gardens park re-opened to the public in July 2011. Within 3 days of the park opening, parts of the garden were vandalised by young teenagers on bicycles and, just a year later, the garden was beginning to look unloved once again. The pond, in which fish had once swam, had been drained for cleaning and a hole in the liner detected. Soon after, the azumaya (tea house) would be vandalised and raised to the ground; the second time in its 20+ year history, but would be rebuilt. In 2015, JMJ completed this painting to celebrate 30 years since the garden opened.

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