by Leslie Buck
In Kyoto, if I needed to move a pile of debris, the men would give me a baron bukuro. Years before I apprenticed in Japan, my mom bought me an expensive Smith and Hawkins tarp that looked like a four-foot-wide bowl, with sides standing two feet high. It was rather ineffectual for a pruner’s eight-foot-long tree clippings, so I finally gave it away. Little did I know she’d bought me a baron bukuro, a clever tarp that securely holds weeds, dirt, leaves, and accidentally swept-up moss that the new girl wanted to hide from the boss. Typical. Moms know best, even when it comes to Japanese tools.
In Japan, cleanup is so civilized that the men hardly looked dirty at the end of most days. Granted, some days we all needed to visit the local sentō, bathhouse, on the way home. Gardeners work with dirt, after all. The curator of the Portland Japanese Garden, Sadafumi Uchiyama, once told me that a professional gardener has such good attention that he is most often not dirty at the end of the day. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to manage this type of professionalism.
Locals took notice of me raking with the kumade, but not because they saw me tearing up the moss; I hid that part. Seeing a white face in the garden must have been as new to the Japanese as seeing towels on people’s heads was to me. Many people continued to approach me. I’d marvel at how many ways there were of asking, “Where are you from?” in Japanese, resulting in confusion and embarrassment in both the inquisitor and interviewee. I loved acting as a foreign ambassador but worried about my poor language skills and about chatting away while my team sweated. The white towel camouflaged my brown hair, reducing interruptions somewhat. But I discovered that if I didn’t look up, no one would approach. If I looked at someone directly and smiled, the paparazzi descended.
At lunchtime, Nakaji yelled out in English, “Half time!” to signal the start of break. So I decided to try my American wit and inquired, “Where are the hot dogs?” Nakaji quickly asked Kei what I’d said. Kei translated. Bossman wanted to know, “Does the American girl want a hot dog? Hasn’t she brought enough for lunch?” I tried explaining the football connection, but in the end poor Masahiro had to escort me to a nearby store, forgoing his entire lunch. Looking back, the dutiful walk became precious, because it was the only time Masahiro and I got to talk in private during my whole time with the company. Masahiro actually knew English but must have felt too shy to use it in front of the others. He asked me in a shaky voice, “Do you like Madonna? What other music do you listen to?” His soft, stuttering, grammatically correct questions made him appear even more sincere than usual.
All morning, I enjoyed sweeping with a traditional hōki. I wanted to experience every aspect of being a Kyoto gardener! But by lunch, I heard my inner thoughts whine, This is fine for a while, but I don’t want to do it all day. I wasn’t used to doing maintenance back home. I rarely had to weed, fix irrigation breaks, or even fertilize. I left these tasks to regular maintenance gardeners. I came to the garden only a few times a year for design consultation and pruning, and I’ve always appreciated the maintenance workers my clients hired. But after my first few days with the proud Kyoto pruners, I began to wonder if I subconsciously felt that cleaning was beneath me. Sogyu had told me that raking was an important first step to becoming a senteishi, a tree pruner. Despite this humbling logic, I’d find myself grumbling, then chiding myself for grumbling. No matter how hard I worked, the men worked twice as fast.
After returning from the hot dog expedition, I sat on a wall next to Kei, devouring my lunch while Masahiro cleaned up. Kei turned to me hesitantly. “Do you have any engagements this weekend?” Oh, definitely, my Kyoto social calendar is booked! I thought, but instead I said calmly, “No, I’m doing nothing.” I had been told by my apprentice advisors to expect my coworkers to act distant, never to invite me out. Kei continued, “I have some American friends I would like for you to meet. I am having a small party at my house this weekend if you would like to come!” Oh, my God, I’d love to go! Thank you so much, Kei! I replied in my mind. “Yes, I’d like that,” I said with composure. It was torture keeping my giddy personality inside. At the end of lunch, Kei asked me how I knew David, my landlord. I hesitated, then gave in to my honest nature: “He is good friends with my boyfriend in California.” I silently sighed. Well, that secret is out. I enjoyed being in a foreign city for a little while with no one knowing anything about my life. Apparently the news was hot. Only five minutes after arriving back at the office, Tanaka’s carpool left for home with one of the office girls in the backseat with me. In perfect English, she asked me, “Does your boyfriend have a job?”
All the Twigs Work with Speed
Many strangers in Japan reached out to help me with unconditional generosity. Soon after I began working for Uetoh, a Kyoto café owner I’d met only once asked me with concern, “Are you okay?” I’d never admit to a stranger that I felt homesick or anxious, but it showed. Her question alone helped me feel better. I knew someone was looking out for me. My weekly bathhouse visits allowed me to feel the warm companionship of other women, and eventually I found a regular dinner spot where a cook fed me nutritious nightly meals to keep me nourished.
I was taught never to prune an old, diseased, or weak plant. If I see a weak tree, such as a camellia or lemon with yellowing leaves and burned edges, I tell the client we must first nurture the plant before we can do any strong pruning. We give the yellowing plant some acidic fertilizer so its leaves can green up and resist sunburn—the green of a leaf acts as sunblock. We make sure it is getting enough water, but not too much. We add nutritious compost around its roots to feed the soil, making a nice home for worms and bugs that dig, poop, fertilize, and aerate the soil in a healthy way. In Kyoto I needed weekly nutrition, in mind and spirit, to keep up with the intense Kyoto craftsmen. The bathhouse cleansed my psyche, and the little restaurant fertilized my body. I could not have successfully completed my apprenticeship without the people who reached out to me with nurturing actions and words.
Driving in Kyoto traffic with Nakaji, I did not feel this same sense of Kyoto nourishment. Our morning commute sometimes mimicked a high-speed car chase with Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco. My Kyoto landlord explained that when Japanese get behind the wheel, the expectation of polite behavior disappears. The lines of the road can be crossed even while those of the hierarchy could not. The car allows citizens to let off steam—lots of it.
Kei acted as chauffeur one morning while Nakaji sat shotgun. Nakaji stared down cars in front of us that were, in his opinion, going “too slow.” He’d express himself in a tortured tone; I guessed he was saying, “How could they go so slow!” Our truck moved like a fat turtle among a sea of sleek koi, weaving through tiny streets toward our garden job. Kei would speed up, then slam on the brakes. I held my breath. We aggressively tailgated a gleaming Mercedes while Nakaji ordered Kei, “Go, go, go!” The only problem was, the driver ahead, with a neat bun of gray hair peeking up over her seat, couldn’t move any faster because the car in front of her had stopped. My coworkers appeared poised to jump out of the seats, turning to Kei, then to the sidewalk, and back to Kei again. Nakaji instructed Kei to rev the motor while the car stood still. I dubbed this maneuver “the Zen of driving with Nakaji.” I put aside my usual urge to fit in and searched for my seat belt. I found it, dusty yet in perfect condition, stuck way under the seat.
To Nakaji’s approval, we gained speed the last few blocks of our drive. The truck brakes came to a squeaky stop alongside a private residence. The men piled out of the car, grabbing ladders, while I mentally kissed the ground. Anxious to stay out of the way, I stood aside dumbly. I took advantage of the moment to look at our new job.
A large earth-tone plaster wall allowed a glimpse of the top of a grove of trees and a house. Peeking inside the front gate, I saw a pyramidal cryptomeria, Japan’s version of a California redwood, silhouetted against a fat maple. Cryptomerias remind me of the redwoods because of their tall trunks and drooping green branches. Unfortunately, they release clouds of polle
n in the spring, causing allergic reactions. The gravel path meandered through the trees toward a front door. Camellias, ferns, and various woodland plants, covered in morning dew, lined the path. These trees could grow up to forty feet or taller, but were kept at around fifteen, just high enough to look natural without overwhelming the house.
Awkward Masahiro, tripping over his feet, rushed past me, heroically hauling a huge metal ladder in each hand. Nakaji tailed his young worker, giving directions. Then Masahiro ran back, faster this time without the ladders, and picked up a small wand attached to a liquid-filled container that was perched on the back of our truck. I had my suspicions. He flipped a switch, causing a loud machine to start up. An arc of liquid sprayed out of the wand, and Masahiro directed it up to the treetops.
Yes, I thought as a sterile mist passed my nostrils, pesticide. The garden looked vibrant and healthy, with no visible leaf damage from potential damaging insects, bacteria, or fungus. “Why use it, and why so much?” I wondered. Man-made chemicals quickly and effectively eliminate pests for busy homeowners, but they also poison the people the garden benefits.
Both my father and my stepmother died of cancer, diagnosed three weeks apart. Their house sat next to a peaceful lake where swans made their home. Their outdoor storage closet teemed with pesticides and herbicides, which perhaps contributed to their illness, perhaps not. But pesticides are a proven contributing factor to cancer. Pesticides, in addition to killing bugs that are harmful to the garden, kill soldiering bugs that naturally keep away these bad bugs. By wiping out the soldier bugs, they eliminate the antioxidants of the garden. My living Oklahoma relatives don’t get to see what I found magical as a child near streams, lit-up fireflies flying in circles in darkness as though they are riding invisible Ferris wheels at night—except for one family friend who recently began seeing fireflies in his backyard, after he stopped using pesticides for several years.
Watching Masahiro, I was appalled. I expected more from the nature-inspired craftsmen. After a few minutes, my Berkeley political spirit awoke. I placed a cowgirl red bandana over my mouth in silent but visible protest. A bit anxious, I stood far away from the group and for once did not run to the boss to ask for instructions. Masahiro sprayed trees over his head for a good fifteen minutes without face protection. Before he’d even finished, the men began pruning trees under a post-shower drip of sticky pesticides. I asked Kei, pointing to the wand, “Pesticide?” even though I knew perfectly well it was. “Yes,” he responded calmly, “a pesticide. It kills all the bugs, including the good ones,” and walked away. I realized then that maybe some contemporary Japanese craftsmen did understand the benefits of organic pest management.
Nakaji yelled out something, and I asked Kei what he’d said. He translated with a smile, “Nakaji said, ‘Get to work, all my little twigs!’” Our group nickname reminded me of a lecture I heard at a Zen monastery. At a cold morning lecture at Green Gulch Farm, along the fertile coastline of Marin County, a female abbot explained how, on its own, a twig breaks easily. But when you take a bunch of twigs and tie them together, a strong branch results, one with power. I wondered if Nakaji meant that all of us little twigs worked together as a strong team, or that we were all individual little twigs, each easily snapped. Nakaji signaled to have me follow him to a corner in the garden. I had done such a miserable job on the previous day’s conifer, I thought for sure he’d given up on me. He pointed to a large pine. I pulled hundreds of cool, sticky pine needles quickly, with no stop for a sip of water, hardly taking a breath.
I kept an eye on the men’s pines as they transformed what looked like thick green porcupines into stylized garden swans. Japanese black pines can be pruned more vigorously in Kyoto than San Francisco because they love the Japanese climate. San Francisco has warm, dry summers; perfect weather for beachgoers. Yet Japanese black pines prefer Japan’s blazing hot, humid, rainy summers. San Francisco winters are mild, with few freezes. Japanese pines are no California beach bums; they like Japan’s winter cold snaps. In the Bay Area it can rain all winter long. The Japanese pines dislike the water pooling uncomfortably around their roots, and they refuse to pull liquid up their capillary tubes to their needles, where they’d otherwise use this water in a Japanese summer to help create food and strength. With too much unwanted winter water during their dormancy period, Japanese pines yellow in the Bay Area. They look and feel weak. As a result, we have to prune pines with less detail than in Japan.
In the Bay Area I spend quite a bit of time determining pine strength. On a strong Japanese black pine, such as one I prune in Orinda, an inland Bay Area city, where summers are hot and winters chilly, I can prune out up to forty percent of the branches and needles. On a weak Japanese red pine in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff, a historic garden belonging to a woman who owned one of the city’s first Japanese restaurants, I only prune out ten percent. The summers in San Francisco can be particularly cool and the winters almost warm, so I clean out the dead needles and do a little thinning and almost no needle pulling. Pine pruning is infinitely complicated, and must be altered for each microclimate. The most experienced pine pruners in America are skilled bonsai artists who understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual plants in the varied regions of the United States. I’m constantly assessing the strengths or weaknesses of pines back home, so I easily adapt to new situations—like Kyoto, for example. The Kyoto craftsmen pruned the Japanese pines with clear determination. Never having observed Japanese pines pruned in their own climate, I’d never seen them pruned with such styling prowess as I saw Nakaji doing across from me in the garden that day.
After several hours of focused needle pulling and watching, I began to tire. In fact, at the start of the day, I’d noticed that my muscles ached. My initial excitement about working with the craftsmen the first few days faded as I noticed that the men’s pace never let up. I felt tired at the beginning, middle, and end of the day. I’d collapse each night onto my futon and fall into a deep sleep, only to receive seven hours of sleep a night instead of my normal nine to ten that I got back home. Asher said I’d get used to the intense schedule after a few weeks, but I thought I might just have to get used to working under the influence of exhaustion. So when a grandmotherly woman peeked out from our client’s back door, carrying our morning tea on a tray, I almost hugged her. Her traditional offering was the first of hundreds brought out for us workers, three times a day, mostly by women working inside the home. We never knew what type of drink and food might show up on a magical tray: rice crackers, French pastries, or even Twix bars. To drink, we’d most often receive green tea, but we’d also be served soda or even liquor—just once. The tray from grandma held a ceramic teapot with strainer, tiny cups, a tin of shriveled green tea leaves, and a thermos of hot water—all for making tea. She brought out an additional tray of savory warm Japanese dumplings and huge crisp Asian pear slices. I was hungry, but I didn’t dare grab one of the dumplings until someone else delicately took one first. This wasn’t a “guests take the first bite” situation, as it would be in Oklahoma.
I pretended to examine a pine but instead slyly eyed Masahiro, who was patiently opening the tea tin, sifting tea leaves into the teapot strainer, pouring hot water into the steeping pot, and handing out the dumplings as he waited for the tea to steep appropriately. He filled small ceramic cups with grassy-smelling bright green tea and gave a cup to each person before settling down to enjoy his own. At the end of our break, Masahiro picked up the leftover cups, plates, and pear cores, gathered them onto trays, and handed them over to our client, who appeared at that very moment. Masahiro bowed as he delivered the tray, saying, “Sumimasen” (I am sorry). Everyone chimed in. The elderly client bowed slightly to him, saying in a raspy voice, “Hai,” and grasped the tray with her wrinkled hands from the soft hands of Masahiro.
I was delighted that grandma said so little during this exchange. My California clients could never have maintained such silence; nor could I, for that matter. My clients wou
ld have explained to me how to make the tea, that the fruit was organic, when the dumplings were made, and by whom. That said, my California clients have served me homemade cookies and cake, martinis with a Meyer lemon wedge and Sonoma wines, espressos or black tea with cream and sugar (my favorite), and occasionally dinner. Probably the martini wasn’t such a good idea. I had to quit early and return the next day. Never drink and prune.
The minute the tray was handed back, we twigs resumed our positions. I asked Nakaji what to do next. He responded, “Matsu” (pine). I asked, “Ha mushiri?” (Needle pulling?) which was rather obvious, but I wanted to show off the new word I’d learned from Kei. He looked at me blankly and walked away. I thought, Okay, needle pulling, stupid, and ran back.
After an hour or so, Nakaji returned and began working on the pine next to me. He pulled out his shears, pruning a few branches instead of just pulling needles, and motioned for me to do the same. I squinted my eyes and looked over for confirmation. Nakaji had just motioned for me to do fall styling, probably the most advanced and difficult pruning in the garden. A warning from my mentor came into my thoughts: “If you weaken a pine, even just one branch, the whole tree can die.” Nakaji’s willingness to have me work on the pines perplexed me. So, another test, I assumed, tensing up. Tests make me feel like a deer in headlights.
My arms moved heavily. I pruned clumsily and watched Nakaji on the sly as he deftly styled his own pine. I could do this before, why can’t I do it now? Searching for courage, I thought back to the first time I’d ever styled a client’s pine, four years earlier.
Somehow, early on in my career, I’d managed to secure a pine-pruning account in the wealthy Berkeley Hills, with very little pine-styling experience. I worried that I’d ruin my poor first experiment, my soon-to-be “pine Frankenstein.” I looked over the pine, which was thick as a bear, wondering how I’d transform it into a multibranched focal-point tree, as the client had requested.