Designed by the late landscape architect and professor emeritus Takeo Uesugi, the 1.3-acre garden flourishes with bonsai pine, sculptured rock, sasa bamboo, zoysia grass, and other traditional Asian flora. A large pond, complete with a running waterfall, two overlook bridges, walkways, a fountain, and a small amphitheater offer a place for outdoor gatherings and picturesque backdrops for graduation and engagement portraits.
As an art form, the Japanese garden blends elements of nature and the Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist traditions that embrace physical seclusion for quiet reflection and meditation.

Uesugi, a 14th-generation uekiya (garden craftsman), was an internationally acclaimed landscape architect who was instrumental in expanding Japanese gardening to North America in the 1970s. He reconciled the tenets of landscape architecture with the design principles at the heart of the Sakuteiki, the 11th-century treatise on Japanese garden-making, resulting in pioneering a new field of landscape design that adapted the Japanese garden to the California environment. For his achievements in fostering the development of Japanese gardens throughout the world, the Japanese government honored Uesugi in 2010 with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, conferred to those engaged in public service for many years.

"My father approached his works with the philosophy that Japanese garden design principles were universal and can be applied to any part of the world in accordance with the region's natural systems, including climate, native plants, local materials, and culture," said Keiji Uesugi, principal at Takeo Uesugi & Associates, a landscape architecture lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona and 15th-generation uekiya.

"As the gardens of Japan were shaped by the plants, stones, and water available within the archipelago, he believed it was only appropriate for Japanese gardens in Southern California to be water-conscious and include native plants alongside traditional ones that worked well in our arid climate," Keiji continued.

 
The Aratani Garden mirrors Uesugi's artistic skill of creating tranquil spaces that connect people with nature and with each other. His signature style - gently flowing gardens utilizing paths and streams - is reflected in other notable projects such as the James Irvine Garden at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, the Washington Center in Washington, D.C., and the Huntington Japanese Garden at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
The garden, unveiled in 2003, was conceived by Japanese American author and humanitarian Michi Weglyn and named after George and Sakaye Aratani, who gifted $300,000 to transform an existing natural spring-fed pond into one of Cal Poly Pomona's most beloved spots. The project was developed under the leadership of then-university president Bob Suzuki, an endeavor for which the Japanese government bestowed to him in the same year the Order of the Rising Sun, awarded for distinguished service to the state in fields including education.

The Aratani Japanese Garden is connected to the university's newest green space: The Park @ 98, formerly the site of the Classroom, Laboratory, and Administration (CLA) Tower, the futurist, eight-story, structure, designed by architect Antoine Predock and demolished in Spring 2022. The green space and covered overlook spans 8,600 square feet of crisscross walkways, native California plants and trees, seat walls and furniture for study areas, and charging stations and Wi-Fi units for reliable connectivity.

W.K. Kellogg Commemorative Rose Garden
The W.K. Kellogg Commemorative Rose Garden is a legacy garden dating to the early ranch days of the present-day Cal Poly Pomona campus, when the sprawling hill country was the winter residence and Arabian horse breeding facility of the eponymous cereal company founder. It was built for Kellogg's wife, the physician Dr. Carrie Staines Kellogg.

According to Cal Poly Pomona, Kellogg commissioned landscape architect Charles Gibbs Adams for the project. Adams, an early advocate for the use of California native plants who worked on the Hearst Castle gardens, developed plans for the Rose Garden in 1926 and planted the blooms in 1927. Adams was popular with the era's silent film glitterati; one of his clients was film director Cecile B. DeMille who hired him to design his formal Hollywood garden and 1,300-acre estate.

The Kellogg Rose Garden covers roughly 2.5 acres, of which one acre is roses. Designed in a wheel shape, legend says that Kellogg held superstitions for the number seven, hence the seven concentric rings and cross paths that remain today. The garden was a popular tourist attraction during its early days, praised for its beauty and bounty of rose varieties.

Around 1992 the rock-bordered, gravel-covered paths were replaced with concrete walkways and the paths re-aligned to connect to walkways from the campus' former administration building. There are seven long walkways that lead off the white gazebo at the center of the garden, with brick plazas dedicated to alumni, retired and current staff and faculty members, and the Kellogg family descendants.
The Kellogg Rose Garden's popularity persists today: a favorite relaxation spot for students, graduation, and engagement portraits, and even as a wedding venue where couples exchange vows under a gazebo surrounded by a cloud of colors and fragrance from more than 230 rose varieties flowering from 576 bushes donated and installed by venerable rose wholesaler, Weeks Roses. The garden is cared for by two gardeners visiting twice a week during growing season, with additional support for special events and winter pruning.

None of the roses in the garden today are original to the Kellogg Rose Garden's first plantings. Most of the original varieties, developed in the 1800s and early 20th century, are no longer available in the United States, according to John Hiatt, a Cal Poly Pomona garden specialist who has cared for the Rose Garden for 20 years.

Many roses that bloom in the garden today have their own storied backgrounds. Some varieties are named for celebrities and family members of breeders, Hiatt expressed. Among them are the Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Julie Newmar, Henry Fonda, and Dick Clark. One of the most intriguing varieties thriving in the garden today is the Distant Drums variety, a pink-lavender-tan blend.
The oldest variety the Kellogg Rose Garden is the Peace rose, smuggled as budwood by Francis Meilland out of the last plane to leave France at the onset World War II. This rose hybrid, named "Madame A. Meilland," was cultivated by Pennsylvania's Conard-Pyle Company and introduced after the 1945 fall of Berlin as the "Peace" rose hybrid.

"The Rose Garden has been one of my favorite places to work," Hiatt said. "It is a beautiful location that is both an inspiration and challenge. When I work in the garden I mingle with many students and staff that appreciate the work that goes into maintaining it. I feel a sense of achievement and pride that I can give so much joy to so many people."