The Bellingham-Tateyama, Japan Friendship Garden is located on the west end of the central library. In the near future community volunteers may do some clean-up and maintenance work on the garden.
Background:
1958 Tateyama became Bellingham’s first Sister City, one of the first such formalized friendships in the U.S. and a garden is established with a flowering cherry tree.
1965 The people of Tateyama gift a toro stone lantern to the people of Bellingham.
1993 The 35th anniversary was commemorated with a plaque dedicated to Mayors John Westford and Toshio Tamura.
2018 Bellingham celebrates 60th anniversary with a Mayoral Summit of our seven sister cities. Three rocks and a tree are donated. Volunteers weeded and renewed the garden with the Parks Department.
2019 Seattle-based Japanese-American Landscape Architect Koichi Kobayashi agrees to consult in a redesign in accordance with authentic Japanese garden principles.
2020 Class for community on Japanese Garden Design is scheduled at Community Coop but has to be canceled due to the oncoming coronavirus pandemic.
2021 Japanese Garden Design with Kobayashi is presented via Zoom on June 17.
Purpose For The Garden:
- To beautify a highly visible outdoor space in the core of Bellingham’s Civic Center.
- To demonstrate that we value diversity of culture, starting with our 60-year friendship with Tateyama and now cities in six different nations.
- To provide an aesthetically satisfying, emotionally quieting, and intellectually stimulating space.
- To establish an outdoor venue for Japanese and other cultural activities and studies.
- To form a group of Friends of the Tateyama Garden to maintain the garden into the future.
For more information or to volunteer for work parties, please contact garden@bsca.org