A well-done Japanese garden is spectacular anytime of the year. Each season has its own glory and charm.
For example, the skeletal structures of the deciduous trees and shrubs present themselves for all to see only in the winter. In my garden this includes the Japanese and vine maples, the ginkgo tree and Japanese stewartia among other things. For example, take a look at the bright reddish pink trunk and branches of the sango-kaku coral bark maple against the dark green backdrop of the arborvitae hedge, or the red berry clusters on the nandina domesticas or heavenly bamboo plants. The bright colors of these plants pop as if to say, “Here I am, look at me!”
I am pleased to be able to share my garden with you for your viewing pleasure.
Our tree service, can prune the shrubs in your garden as well in a way that will delight all those who see it.
This is a one of a kind tutorial on pruning two needle pines in a Japanese (sukashi) style from the beginning to the finished product. This video is packed full of information that will help guide you as you tackle pruning the illustrious pine tree—the top tree in the Japanese garden. Please enjoy! —Nathan Lawrence the Arborist (or Niwashi, Niwa Mori) and Treevangelist
The Lan Su Chinese Garden in downtown Portland, Oregon is one of only nine Chinese gardens in America, and one of only two of its kind. It’s a whole other world in a one square city block garden oasis in the midst of a concrete and steel urban jungle. This garden will transform you and carry you to some place else—somewhere better. I was totally shocked and surprised when I first visited it. I never knew such a treasure existed in this somewhat infamous city.
This video is a tour and critical review of the pruning techniques of the world famous (#1 in North America and one of the top in the world) Portland (Oregon) Japanese Garden by Nathan Lawrence, ISA Certified Arborist and master aesthetic pruner. If you are an avid gardener and plant lover, a pilgrimage to this iconic garden will challenge, inspire and enlighten you all at the same time. You will leave a changed person—for the better. Check this video out and then if you can, visit this amazing garden that is actually five gardens in one!
In this video, Nathan shows how to candle prune pine tree in the spring on a Japanese red pine. We focus on the technique known as “cloud pruning” in the Japanese niwaki style. Please enjoy.
This is an example of a Street of Dreams Japanese garden created by the renowned Japanese landscape designer Hoichi Kurisu that Good News Trees Service, Inc. of Wilsonville has been maintaining for more than 20 years for three differenthome owners.
Are you frustrated with all of your shrubs being sheared into boring geometric shapes—spheres, ovals, rectangles—or left to grow in a tangled, misshaped mess? How about looking to the East—all the way to Japan—for some inspiration to revitalize your garden?
When you think of a Japanese garden, what comes to mind? Probably pagoda lanterns, pine trees and Japanese maples pruned in a curiously artful manner, and water features including koi ponds, waterfalls and meandering streams. If you find this appealing, have you considered bringing some of these elements into your own garden in the way that you prune your shrubs and trees? Then consider niwaki.
The Japanese word niwaki simply means “garden trees.” The art of the Japanese niwaki pruning style involves coaxing out of a tree those features believed to signify the essence of a tree including its gnarled trunks, outstretched branches and rounded canopies (Niwaki—The Pruning, Training and Shaping of Trees the Japanese Way, p. 9, by Jake Hobson).
Niwaki is similar to the art of bonsai pruning, with which most people are familiar, except not in a miniaturized form, but involving full-sized trees. Many of the bonsai pruning techniques can be applied to the larger trees and shrubs in the garden but on a grander scale and, obviously, without the same attention to minute detail. Therefore, you can lose the mini-pruners, tweezers and scissors.
In the niwaki pruning style, trees are often made to look older than they really are by encouraging a broad trunk supporting gnarled and drooping branches, and by giving them a more open and attractive appearance so that the structure or architecture of the tree is visible through the foliage. Trees can be made to imitate windswept or lightning struck trees in the wild, which also gives them the appearance of age (A Practical Guide to Japanese Gardening, pp. 240–241, by Charles Chesshire).
Both the bonsai and niwaki styles of pruning attempt to replicate mature trees—some hundreds of years old—as they appear in nature after having endured the rigors of time including weather, pests and adverse growing conditions. We often see such trees clinging to cliffs overhanging the ocean’s shoreline, or in windswept canyons and gorges, or perched high on a mountain side. It is also not uncommon to see such gnarled trees in ancient forests, or growing in an open meadow. In all of these scenarios, time and gravity have caused the trees’ branches to naturally sag gracefully, and as the weaker branches get shaded out by the stronger and larger ones, the trees develop a naturally layered look. When we see such a tree, we are inspired by its character, beauty, symmetry or asymmetry and overall appearance of antiquity, stability and permanence. We sometimes even poetically attribute human characteristics to such trees such as wisdom, grace, dignity and nobility.
