The Japanese Garden

Here in Meguro the sun has come out after the grey clouds and rain of last week's typhoon. This change in the weather has been like a shedding of old skin for me. I am at home, peaceful and happy pottering around the local environment, listening to the sounds of inner city Tokyo and enjoying watching the activity around me. My heart rate has slowed and I feel a gentleness of spirit wrap its arms around my soul. I am back in the garden again, tending to the plants and cleaning up in readiness for the autumn season planting.

I cannot apologise for uploading large images, they may take time for you to download if you are trapped in the dial-down consciousness that is Virgin Media Broadband and its insidious brothers UK side. Here, in the 21st century, the broadband is a standard 100Mb, fibre optic and available, you can even watch movies without being choked off. So be patient and wait for the images to load, living in the 20th century you really do not have much of a choice. Just be thankful because from what I am hearing of government policy it looks like you may well find yourselves in the 19th century before long.

Because I only get to do the gardening twice a year, I have to plan for approximately five months of growing and maintenance self sufficiency. The first task is always to clear the decks and set about tidying up both the pots and the landings. This is work which I relish. I can sit on the balcony, usually perched on an upturned bucket, and work my way through each pot and trough. I use my hands and a pair of secateurs, fingers find the weeds and then delve into the soil tracing the root system before lifting the interloper out. All surplus growth is cut away and slowly but surely the pots are rationalised.

Seeing the overgrowth of the previous five months is always astounding when I arrive. Everything grows which such enthusiasm here, for a gardener this land is a gift to green creativity. As I started about my task I really began to feel very content, if life was nothing more than tending to these pots then I would be a very happy man.

As I approach each tangle, gently I have to find my way through the complex of relationships which have developed. Never, ever rush, a hasty snip, a reckless pull and in a moment something of beauty can be lost. No, feeling your way around with loving hands is the way to ensure that all of value is safe and preserved. This is not an occupation for the feckless or impatient.

The back stairs become my workshop. One of the disciplines of the Japanese Garden is optimisation of space, there are tight limitations on the areas you have to work within. This is Tokyo, the most densely populated place on earth, where I have built a garden is in the utility spaces, the corridors, the stair wells, the balcony, this is where the urban Japanese garden.

We are fortunate in that we also have the edge of the car park. If I had my way I would turn the whole parking lot into a garden but this would be an offence to local sensibility. More importantly it would impact as a loss of income and where the contest is between money and nature, in Japan money will always win.

So adopting the local cult of pragmatism I continue my progress by moving almost everything I can to the stair well. This gives me a chance to clean the floors and gulleys of leaves and loose earth.

Such a thorough approach increases the workload but this task is anything but onerous. Again, any attempt to rush will inevitably end in damage and loss, slow, patient steps preceded by consideration and contemplation. A zen garden can be more than stones and pebbles.

Practicality is always an issue in Japan, they like things that work, they like trains that run on time because it makes travel practical and efficient. Instigating a practical approach to this garden is the essential underpinning of its success.

All began with putting in place the solar powered irrigation system. That has worked with minimum maintenance for four years now. I am concerned that the basic unit may naturally loose its functionality (I mean breakdown of course, god I have been working with computer geeks for far too long!) .

This would be a problem as the unit I bought in 2008 is no longer made, I suspect there was not enough profit in a solar powered model so all now use batteries or run off of mains supply. The solar powered model works well for me because I can leave it for five to six months knowing that it will just work day in, day out. I can't use a battery model as I am not here if the batteries run out. If we need to use the mains supply then I have to get an electrician in to run a supply out into the garden.

Solar power, clean, efficient, functional, pragmatic but when viewed from the heartless, blood sucking pages of the business model, well, once its installed just how is anyone meant to make any money out of it? I whisper back into rich and wealthy ears that there is a rather subtle beauty in the sun growing the garden and feeding it with water but they shake their dusty heads and ask, "Subtle beauty? How much does that cost?"

Another one of the tasks is to keep the bushes and shrubs tidy. All that is needed for this work is a good sense of balance and a pair of secateurs. Anything else is over-embellishment. I have been working on shaping these plants for four years now and this year the shapes are beginning to appear from out of the growth. There are many reasons to love this work and I am going to share some of them with you now.

Perhaps you have to flick between the first picture of the shrubs and the second to see the difference in any detail. Working with these shrubs is an intensely personal occupation. With a secateurs you can only cut one leaf at a time so each shrub demands much attention and you have to get in close. The shapes are what you see within the plant itself, trying to force nature is never really successful, you have to open avenues, create options and shape the future growth from the moment you start to lay your hands on each bush.

As you can see, I am not a traditionalist more of a free style sculptor when it comes to topiary. Some of you may remember the privet hedge at St Georges Avenue. That was six years work, a labour of love that was much appreciated by local residents. The property developers who bought that house tore the hedge down within days of us leaving. I say tore because they literally ripped it out of the ground and threw it onto a skip. Their balance sheet looked better without trying to develop and sell a property which had a hedge that required love and attention. A hasty brick wall and some cheap railings stand prison like where that privet used to grow and entertain local people.

Deeply immersed in my bushes I trim and prune, jump down, take a perspective from all angles, jump up and continue. The sun shines, the crows laugh at me; arghh arghh arghh arghh, and sparrows squeak around in the bushes as I am working on them. A slow but steady stream of passer bys bow and offer words of appreciation. I so love Japan and the Japanese.  A lady on her bike bows as she passes:

"Go Corro Sama" she says, which sums up something I never really get when building gardens in the UK. She is saying, "Thankyou for your effort". "Doh Itachi Mashte" I reply and bow in response. "It is my pleasure."

Perhaps I am romanticising but I don't think so, you see I believe that her thanks for my effort is about an idea of Japanese neighbourliness. In working on the shrubs and bushes I am seen to be making the area nicer for everyone, the community benefits from the pleasantness this small work provides as an old lady cycles back from the shops. My efforts are seen to be something of value socially and that is a value which brings deep satisfaction to my heart. Ultimately, it is just so pleasant to be in such a neighbourhood and with people who care.

Then local people all pass by as I am working, they stop, they talk to me  and they tell me wonderful things about what I am doing. I don't understand a word they are speaking but I know what they are saying. All I need is to say; thankyou for your kindness, it is my pleasure, please, if you please, thankyou, all I need are these few words in Japanese planted into their words at appropriate places and they believe they are having a conversation. Perhaps we are.

Yesterday an old man talked to me about the importance of using secateurs rather than power tools, he admired how I was shaping the plants with single snips. I did not understand a single word he said, how zen is that?

The hydrangeas burst into colour and bring joy to all who pass by.