We build gardens that don’t fight this place.

Japanese‑inspired rock gardens, water features and low‑water landscaping for Lethbridge and southern Alberta — designed, placed and planted by the same family since 1976.

Book a consultation (403) 634-3105

834 10 St S, Lethbridge · junjikuno@gmail.com

A cloud-pruned pine beside a prairie boulder in a Lethbridge garden built by Southern Alberta Rock Gardens — Cloud-pruned pine & prairie stone — a client garden, Lethbridge

A garden of stone needs no rain.

The old Japanese dry gardens were built to hold a river without a drop of water — raked gravel for the current, standing stones for the falls. That idea was made for a dry country. It was made for this one.

“Turfgrass is thirsty.”

The City of Lethbridge is asking residents to rethink their yards — its own words: turfgrass is “not ideal for southern Alberta’s semi‑desert climate.”

— City of Lethbridge water conservation program, 2026

One day a week.

Under the city’s Stage One drought measures, outdoor watering drops to a single day per week. A yard that needs less water isn’t a style choice anymore. It’s a plan.

— City of Lethbridge water conservation FAQs

Rebates are coming.

The city already pays rebates for rain barrels and low‑flow fixtures, and says xeriscape rebates are planned next. The dry yard is becoming the rewarded yard.

— City of Lethbridge Environmental Incentive Program

Lethbridge has loved Japanese gardens since Nikka Yuko opened in 1967. We’ve been building them in backyards since 1976 — stone, gravel, hardy plants and shade that stay calm and green-adjacent through chinooks, drought stages and February. Fifty years before it was policy, it was just how we worked.

A stacked-stone waterfall and river-rock pond built by Southern Alberta Rock Gardens — Real water, spent where you can hear it — client garden, southern Alberta

What we build

From a quiet corner to the whole yard. One crew, one family name on all of it.

Rock gardens & dry streams

Boulders set the way stones sit in a riverbed, gravel raked around them, planted with what actually survives here. Almost nothing to mow. Almost nothing to water.

Ponds & waterfalls

Where water belongs, we spend it well — recirculating falls and ponds you can hear from the kitchen window.

Retaining walls & patios

Interlocking block, natural stone and flagstone — walls that hold a prairie slope and patios that hold a summer evening.

Decks, fences & arbors

Cedar structures built to frame the garden — arbors, screens and fences that age the colour of the coulees.

Sprinklers & winterization

Irrigation designed for a dry country, installed in spring and blown out before the first hard freeze — so it works next spring too.

Fifty years, laid like stepping stones

A garden takes years to become itself. So does a garden company.

1976

A family business opens in Lethbridge, building Japanese-inspired rock gardens for southern Alberta yards. It never stops.

40 shows

Four decades of the Lethbridge Home, Garden & Leisure Show — a brand-new display garden built every single year.

— Lethbridge Herald, March 2026

Legacy Gardens

Chosen by the Lethbridge & District Horticultural Society to build the rock garden at Legacy Gardens — the kind of call that goes to the firm a city trusts.

— Lethbridge & District Horticultural Society

2026

The city itself starts telling homeowners what we’ve built for fifty years: in a semi-desert, the calmest yard is the one that doesn’t fight the climate.

“Every year is different, every year we change the display — we are always trying to show people what they can do with their yard.”

— Junji Kuno, in the Lethbridge Herald, March 2026

Cedar arbor with lattice panels over a flagstone circle, boulders set around it — Cedar arbor & flagstone circle

Dry river-rock garden with a curving paver path and layered planting — Dry stream & curving path

Backyard waterfall beside a paver patio with chairs around a fire table — Waterfall at the edge of a patio

Boulder garden and cedar arbor under a wide prairie sky — Boulders & arbor under a chinook sky

Pergola over a stone-pillared patio overlooking a pond — Pergola at the pond

Bring us your yard

Tell us what you want to stop doing — mowing, watering, fighting the wind — and we’ll come look. You’ll get an honest read on what your yard could be, from the family that’s been reading southern Alberta yards since 1976.

Spring books up fast. Fall is the quiet season — and a fine time to plan.

(403) 634-3105

or write to junjikuno@gmail.com

Chosen by the Lethbridge & District Horticultural Society to build the rock garden at Legacy Gardens.