Cutting Back

by Leslie Buck

  We drove to Sogyu’s current landscaping job, which was at a dentist’s office—and not just any dentist’s office. The patients’ chairs were placed around the edge of one big circular open room. Each chair had a view through a window, the sill of which brimmed with potted plants. A fairly large tea-making area took up a nook. The owner explained that she wanted her patients to feel relaxed, as though they were at home. She said that she hired Sogyu to create a natural, abstract waterfall scene in a small spot between the entryway and the street, so clients would start to feel soothed even before walking in the door.

  Sogyu tied reeds and branches into neat bundles, which he then used to camouflage a pond pump. Kan and Shigemi taught me how to tie a traditional Japanese knot called otoko musubi, which literally translates as “man’s knots.” Using strong black jute, we tied otoko musubi knots around young camellia branches to train them onto bamboo trellises so they would not stretch too far out onto a narrow street. The knot tying took quite a while to learn, and I had the feeling that its interest lay less in function or nomenclature than tradition. The very act of folding and tightening the string bound us together in a subtle way I did not yet fully understand. I felt exhilarated working with the crew; I could barely exhale, for fear my breath might propel the day to its end. The day marked the beginning of a dream, of working with the traditional craftsmen—and craftswomen—in Japan.

  Sogyu motioned for me to follow him. He pointed to a small lavender bush about two feet tall and asked, “Can you please prune it?” Lavender plants can be found all over California, but I didn’t expect to find them in Kyoto, where they probably died in winter frosts. I considered the little Kyoto lavender plant my compadre, my friend far away from home, who like me was an outsider. Actually, even after seven years of pruning in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’d never worked on one lavender plant. Maintenance gardeners handled these small perennials. In my California business, I only pruned trees and special shrubs, and gave general design advice. I left the weeding, irrigation, and planting to specialized maintenance gardeners or landscapers. Treating lavenders like ornamental grasses, most California gardeners simply cut them to the ground in early spring or generally trim off the dead flowers. I pruned shrubs and trees so they’d look as close as possible to how they appear in nature. I’d never thought about how to prune a lavender in an “aesthetic pruning” way. I couldn’t simply cut this one to the ground. The craftsmen might think me a barbarian! It would probably be killed by frost come December, anyway, I reasoned. Best not to hasten its departure, or mine.

  So I knelt down, pulled out my pruning shears from a well-worn scabbard, and carefully removed each individual dead lavender sprout, about thirteen in all. Looking thoughtful, tilting my head this way and that, I thinned certain thick clusters of flower shoots. After I finished, Sogyu came over and said, “Good job.” I grinned sheepishly. But inside I felt ecstatic. I’d pruned my first plant in Japan, a little purple lavender. Sogyu’s request had given me some confidence.

  Sogyu was a kind boss with high standards. He built traditional and eclectic gardens, used rocks from Bali in addition to those from Japan, and sometimes hired foreign specialists. As with almost all landscapers in Kyoto, he did design, construction, rock work, pruning, bamboo work, and maintenance. Unlike in most Japanese companies, he asked his employees to work only five days a week instead of six. “It is important to take time off,” Sogyu said firmly. I thought this marked another reason he’d make an ideal boss. Traditional and alternative, casual and passionate, Sogyu’s team felt like home.

  The following day, Sogyu had no work to offer me, so I found my way to Shisendo, a historical garden in the densely forested hills of Kyoto that Sogyu had recommended I visit. Sitting on a straw tatami floor bathed in natural light, I followed the progress of three young gardeners pruning azaleas only fifteen feet away. Two walls of the room had been slid open to allow this expansive view. The gardeners wore khaki uniforms and had a white strip of cloth wrapped around their heads. Behind them swayed a dark mass of maple trees with undulating depth.

  Pencil and journal in hand, I thought back to a brief trip I’d taken to Tokyo years before to attend an international Japanese garden conference. I’d had the opportunity to visit gardens with a young Japanese landscaper, Marcello, who taught me that Japanese gardens were for enjoying, not for simply documenting with a camera. Marcello and I often pulled out books and read while sitting on garden tatami mats. We’d write poetry, or just watch the garden and enjoy our friendship. I sometimes tell Americans who visit Japanese gardens, “If a Japanese tourist went to Disneyland, snapped a bunch of photos, and then left without ever getting on a ride, would they really have the full experience? Take the time to relax and enjoy the gardens in Japan.”

  I was intently writing away about all I’d seen and heard in Sogyu’s company, when a Japanese man in a well-pressed, stylish business suit entered the room with a huge camcorder in hand, filming. Jeez, I thought, annoyed. So this is modern Japan. Can’t he just relax?

  Although I had yet to feel relaxed myself, at least I was trying. The man sat down beside me, placing his huge recorder on the tatami. And then he proceeded to stare at one spot in the garden for a solid hour. I watched him watching the garden and wondered what he was looking at for so long. So I started looking more closely at the garden myself. I watched gardeners rhythmically shearing azaleas. Snip, snip, snip. I moved my pencil in time on my page. Scratch, scratch. Birds sang and a bamboo clacker softly knocked together every minute or so to scare off deer. Tweet, tweet, clack. I could not see it, but I heard bubbling water. Gurgle, gurgle. And I watched shadows play on the fine white gravel near the azaleas. Such a seemingly still scene, yet so much action took place. All the activity took my mind off my inability to predict the future and instead brought my thoughts to the present lively scene.

  Shisendo looked wild, like most Kyoto gardens I’d visited. I suppose that the first time I came to Japan, I suspected all Japanese gardens might be filled with overly sheared poodle-ball shrubs, oddly miniaturized landscapes, and brightly colorful azaleas. Instead, the garden before me made me think of the wild forest behind my first home with only enough flowers to signify seasonality. Almost all the Kyoto public and private gardens I’d seen were planted with at least ninety percent native plants. Like most Kyoto gardens, Shisendo was a native garden, designed to reflect nature.

  I looked up from my tatami sitting perch, at the silhouette of hundreds of maple leaves against a blue Kyoto sky. I was reminded of a Yosemite, California, camping trip where I saw stars above the mountains, sparkling in a pitch black universe. Neither view could look more natural or feel more relaxing. And yet all the plants and trees at Shisendo had been meticulously styled and pruned for more than three centuries. Still, the garden looked and felt as though it had been plucked out of nature. Sadly, many Japanese American gardens in the United States are sheared by well-meaning gardeners who have no means to learn naturalized pruning. These gardens end up looking overly pruned and miniaturized. Americans rarely understand that the gardens of Japan are some of the most stunning native plant gardens in the world.

  I’ve heard many times at Japanese garden conferences that to create a Japanese garden, one should use the plants native to the surrounding area of the garden, rather than plants native to Japan. The American Japanese garden landscaper David Slawson often discusses this concept, which is mentioned in one of the oldest Japanese garden manuals, the Sakuteiki, translated by Slawson and Marc P. Keane. Shisendo would look beautiful in California, but would not necessarily feel natural, given that Japanese plants can look so foreign in the dry-summer and wet-winter California climate.

  When I thought back to my familiar memories of nature to gain inspiration for my California home garden, I returned, like many city dwellers, to remembrances of family camping trips. A landscaper in Japan once told me, “Leslie, do not imitate our forests in Kyoto; imitate your own forest. Landscapers throughout Japan make
this mistake and copy the forests of Kyoto instead of the local forests surrounding their own area.”

  Hence I decided to use a scene in California nature very familiar to me: I built my garden to playfully feel like a California campground on the edge of the forest, using Japanese garden principles I saw at Shisendo. I have a madrone and toyon evergreen trees, which block the views of neighboring buildings, and I planted simple white yarrow flowers that show a season more than a color. Most of my plants are found in local parks of my area, and all can be found in climates similar to Berkeley. I thought about the essence of a campground, so I have a tent, a fire pit, and a big rock for leaning against. Yet I decided against finding a black bear, so I wouldn’t have too many things to distract from my wondering thoughts in nature. The tent is surrounded by a huckleberry grove. From it, I can see a meadow, my favorite spot in nature. I am just a beginner landscaper, so my garden is not designed anywhere near as well as Shisendo. But I hope that one day, perhaps after a few decades of natural pruning, it will allow me to have a calming experience like the one I felt at Shisendo that day.

  I had been sitting toward the back of the room at Shisendo, and when the businessman departed he was very careful not to walk in front of me, instead taking a circuitous route behind me, even though there was barely space to walk in that area. His calm presence, and the garden’s natural beauty, allowed me to enjoy a garden in Kyoto as I hadn’t in a long while, with a light heart.

  While the trees and wind swirled softly about me, I had time to think about my future plans. I kept wondering if I should ask Sogyu directly if I could work with him. David had encouraged me. “You should ask. Sogyu has already asked you to join him for a day.” Deep down, I felt he’d make a perfect boss. He spoke English, he lived locally, he was highly trained, and I might have more chances to do landscaping. On the other hand, Sogyu told me straight out that he felt uncertain about how much work he had to offer. And it looked as though I wouldn’t get to do a lot of pruning.

  But when I returned home that night from the garden, David handed me a fax that had arrived from Uetoh Zoen, the landscaping company that had turned me away previously. He translated the note: “You can come to visit us next Sunday at 8:00 a.m. No one in the office speaks English.” Hmm, I mused. Now what do I do? How could I figure out how to hire someone to translate? It felt simpler to ask Sogyu if I could work with him and stop looking into other situations. As my thoughts went in every direction, a Buddhist saying entered my mind: The easy path is the right path. But the only way I knew to contact Sogyu was by running into him on the street. I needed some advice.

  I decided to call an American who had lived in Kyoto for many years. The editor of the American Japanese garden journal had recommended I contact Asher Brown while in Kyoto and ask him for advice if I needed it. Originally from the East Coast, Asher apprenticed in a large Kyoto landscaping firm. His company didn’t need any extra workers, but I still called him occasionally while I searched for a position in Kyoto. Asher always offered a willing ear and encouraging words. I told him about the past two eventful weeks and ended with, “I don’t see the point of traveling several hours across town to visit Uetoh Zoen if no one there speaks English, especially when there is an excellent landscaping company right next door!”

  Asher disagreed and said, “Why don’t I come with you to translate? It’s on a Sunday, my day off.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Are you sure?” I didn’t want to keep him from resting on his day off. Anytime I’d worked seven days in a row in California, I’d break down crying near day six. “It would be an insult not to visit Uetoh after you requested the meeting,” Asher persisted. He had a point. So we made plans to meet on Sunday morning. I could at least get a peek at what Asher said was a fairly large Kyoto company.

  My emotions had calmed at Shisendo, but within an hour of returning home, they were back on high alert. I’d done nothing much my first few weeks in Kyoto beyond cleaning my little house on the hill, and then, within just a few days, I’d flown to all sorts of new scenes. The transformation took me high off the ground like a butterfly, but perhaps I’d traveled too high into the clouds, away from a safe landing.

  Reaching for the Unexpected Fruit

  I bought a bus map and did a practice ride to the western side of Kyoto, where Asher and I would visit Uetoh Zoen the following Sunday. I felt too shy to venture right up to the company property, thinking someone might spot me; I’d seen only one or two Caucasian faces a day in Kyoto, and I felt shy there. On my way home, I ventured into the monastery garden, Tenryuji, which I’d found in A Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto, my favorite Kyoto guidebook. Japanese gardens are often mythologized, misunderstood, stereotyped, or given religious connotations that aren’t accurate in Japan. But this book was a rare gem in that it gave authentic explanations of the gardens and was easy to follow. I didn’t know it yet, but I’d eventually work in one of Tenryuji monastery’s private gardens.

  That day in Tenryuji’s main garden, I discovered aged, weeping cherries made up of thickly ribbed green summer leaves. I sat for a while under the cherry branches in a light mood. But slowly, loneliness crept up. The leaves I sat under would disappear in a month or two. I could sit still as long as I wanted, but the trees would keep forging ahead. I thought about how I’d rather be sitting there next to Taylor instead of a silent old tree. I had two loves: my social life and gardening. They fought for my attention. While in Japan, the gardens must be my focus.

  That night I gathered a pile of items from home next to my futon to take on the tour of Uetoh: pressed work clothes, notepaper, business cards, a thank-you present, and a small portfolio of my work in California. My California mentor would show up hours before class to set up supplies and talk to eager students, and then he’d stay as late as anyone needed to answer questions. “Until the last student fell asleep,” we’d tease. I felt I must prepare for my interview properly.

  By Saturday night, my endless worries took over as I lay down to sleep. Working with Sogyu feels good. Why force myself to go to this interview when it stresses me out? I felt annoyed with my need to organize every step so exactly. I’d gone over my stockpiled items several times, set up two alarms for 5:45 and 6:00 a.m., closed my eyes, and prayed for sleep.

  My first alarm at 5:45 a.m. failed. I’d been so focused on the proper wake-up time, I’d forgotten to push the “on” button. My eyes blinked open, and I tried to focus on the soft light glowing on my work pants draped over a chair. My eyes opened wide as I panicked, thinking I’d overslept. I looked at the clock: 6:00 a.m. on the dot. The next alarm sounded. I often woke up seconds before my alarm, my subconscious more reliable than my conscious mind.

  I arrived twenty minutes early at the bus stop where Asher and I had decided to meet, my heart still beating more quickly than usual. I felt hyperalert. Typical for the worrying adventurer, I told myself. I sat down on the bench and, surprisingly, became peaceful. Cars whizzed by. I remarked softly, “I can’t believe how relaxed I feel, I must be groggy,” and the sense dissipated. “Just get this meeting over with.”

  Asher arrived. “Good morning!” We chatted a few minutes before he asked me, “Leslie, what would you like from an apprenticeship with Uetoh Zoen?” Well, he’s taking this seriously. “You must know what you want,” he added, “so that we can ask the right questions.” I sat with that for a few seconds, adjusting my thoughts from wandering ramblings to serious statements. I’d actually prepared some questions, but an impetuous response came forth. “I definitely want to work with Sogyu, unless . . . unless this company offers me the world,” I replied. I was tired of searching.

  I felt prepared enough, but Asher felt otherwise. He insisted on looking over my questions. I proudly pulled out my list of prepared questions. But Asher wanted to go even further by arranging the questions in numerical order and discussing what our moves would be at each juncture. This seemed a little overboard, but I complied.

  An hour and a half later, we stepped off the bus
into what looked like a Kyoto suburb. Walking around several streets, I felt disoriented, not sure if I’d ever learn my way around Kyoto. We walked up a concrete driveway that led to a large property with buildings, sheds, carports, and trucks of every shape and size: the Uetoh Zoen company headquarters. I glanced into a shed with an open door to find a room filled with twenty or so shovels and dozens of extension ladders. Everything was neatly hung on its proper hook or stacked precisely in descending order of shape or size. I thought about taking a photo of the delicious organization but held back.

  A middle-aged man in shorts and a T-shirt came out of the central building to greet us. Definitely a casual tour, I thought. I took in and exhaled a deep breath, realizing I’d barely been breathing. I’d eventually learn that standing before me was the acting director of Uetoh, Shinichi Sano, the son of the well-known, sixteenth-generation Kyoto landscape designer Toemon Sano. I bowed deeply to Shinichi and repeated the formal Japanese introduction I’d practiced in night school: “Hajimemashite” (Pleased to meet you). He made a slight bow in return. We sat down in a rather bleak fifties-looking office, and Asher started asking questions right away. The “tour of the company” pretext was never mentioned again by either man. This was an interview.

  “We wondered if you have hired foreigners before.” After a little bit of casual conversation, Asher began to ask our questions in Japanese, then translated each question and answer for my benefit.

  “Hai” (yes), answered Shinichi Sano. I waited for more details. The pause grew longer. Finally, when no more information was given, I assumed that because a Canadian had given me the referral, the answer must appear rather obvious. So Asher continued, “Have you hired someone not fluent in Japanese?”