Stones · 2 April 2026 · 5 min
How to Read an Emerald
Inclusions in an emerald are called its jardin — its garden. Learning to read them is learning to love the stone.
Diamonds are graded toward emptiness: the fewer inclusions, the better. Emeralds refuse this logic. Nearly every fine emerald carries a jardin — a garden of internal fissures and traces of the stone's growth.
The jardin proves origin and honesty. A Colombian stone carries three-phase inclusions like tiny sealed aquariums; a Zambian stone tends toward cooler, bluish depths. Our gemmologists map each jardin before a stone is ever set.
When you choose an emerald, tilt it under a soft light and look inside rather than at it. Somewhere in that green interior is a landscape only you will ever wear.