Tag Archives: Niwaki

Video: Hinoki Cypress Pruned in the Japanese Niwaki Style

The hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), a native of Japan, is a popular garden tree in the Pacific Northwest. I aesthetically prune dozens of them each year for many clients. There are many ways to prune them improperly (e.g. shearing, pom-pom style, and hacking), but the best way to do it correctly is to work with nature by pruning them in a way that facilitates their natural growing habits, and in a way that accentuates their natural structure and beauty. The Japanese pruning techniques of bonsai and niwaki are what inform and inspire my style of pruning. This tree took me about an hour and a half to prune out. Had this been done by a Japanese pruning master, they might have spent a day or two on it. Unfortunately, it’s not in most people’s budgets to pay an arborist-pruner that amount of money; therefore, we have to do it quickly and affordably. We hope this video inspires you!

Video: De-Squarifying a Sheared Camellia

In our profession as aesthetic pruner-arborists, too often we encounter shrubs and shrub-trees that have been improperly pruned. Often they’re pruned (sheared) into geometric shapes like cubes, spheres, rectangles, pyramids, cones or even lollipops. I call this cubistic pruning—like cubistic art, if you can even call it art. Often a client will move into a home where the plants have been pruned in this manner by the previous owners, and the new owners want to restore the plant to its natural shape; they want to de-sqaurify, de-spherify, de-conify it, if you will. This often can be done, but a tree can’t be transformed from a geometric shape to its natural form overnight. It may take a few years of corrective or restorative pruning to accomplish this. In this video, we will demonstrate the first step taken to de-squarify a camellia that has been pruned and sheared for years into a cube shape. Please enjoy.