Kurt Steiner, the manager of the Lethbridge Travel and Convention Bureau, eventually brought the two together and a steering committee was formed.

Initially, Dr. Tadashi Kubo, landscape architect from the University of Osaka, provided design expertise, but he later handed the responsibility to his assistant Masami Sugimoto, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony.

Core design concepts utilized in the garden include Wabi-sabi, (beauty in age/simplicity), Shakkei, (borrowed view), and Miegakure, (hide and reveal).

Water, (and in the case of a karesansui, its simulated form in sand), comprise some of the major features of Nikka Yuko, as in most Japanese landscape gardens.

Many of the plants are pruned in the Niwaki style, exposing the branch structure and emulating trees found in extreme conditions, or ones later in their life cycle.