# Gardens of the heart



## The Snark (May 27, 2014)

My father was the sole gardener of a 5 acre estate that was essentially all formal gardens. The whole 9 yards. Topiary, neatly trimmed hedges and lawns, flower and veggie beds and on and on. To best describe the place, from before I was born, over 25 years totaled, he put in an average of 10 hour days, 7 days a week, with a one week vacation a year. Even our vacations, camping trips, were usually interrupted by him driving all the way back to reset the soaker hoses and sprinklers and do a little sweeping and raking.
He never used any pesticides except for a fuel oil derivative weed killer on the flag stone and brick walks. A potent herbicide but broke down in the environment in a matter of weeks into a tar.

It was dad's rose gardens that took me on a trip to never never land. He was invited to a rose show. He couldn't be bothered with such fluff so I went in his stead. At the rose show it was reported that some person had hybridized a true blue rose. I went with a rose fanatic group to this persons garden. It was in fact a blue rose. Not a variation of inbred red but slightly darker than sky blue. 

While they were going goo goo over the rose I was distracted by an old OLD woman and an old man sitting on the lawn. The man was pulling dandelions by hand. Speaking softly he would pet and stroke the dandelion, up to 5 minutes of this establishing a rapport, then slowly lift the entire plant and root out of the ground. 6, 8, sometimes even near 10 inch roots, intact and undamaged. Impossible. He would hand them to the woman who very carefully dusted and cleaned the dirt off then placed them gently in a basket.
I was stupefied. Forget the roses. Of course at a formal garden with lots of lawns, dandelions were the bane of my dads life. And a fact of nature as solid as Newton's first law is dandelions roots are firmly entwined to the center of the earth. 
The law of nature defier gave me a few glances and grinned and twinkled at me as I watched. When the woman, his grandmother, took the basket of greens into the house, no doubt the evenings salad, he got to his feet and simply remarked, 'It's Zen.'

Of course. It immediately became obvious, his dandelion pulling motions were very reminiscent of watching Tai Chi. He invited me to follow him through a gate into their private garden. The roses and flower beds out front, available to the public eye were maybe 500 or 700 square feet. Behind the tall board fence was a couple of acres of... fantasy land? My acceptance of his Zen explanation was the key to the lock on the gate. 

I was bewildered. It took me, my eyes, several minutes to adjust. A riot and rage of so many plants in such a confined space. The perimeter of the garden was carefully concealed by the plants and landscaping. It might as well have gone on for miles. There were bonsai of course, by the thousands. Neatly precise paths, of gravel or stepping stones or just the perfectly spaced flat rock here and there, and more plants. And more, and more. And rock formations. And little ponds. Ornate bridges, and statues. Statues from tiny children made of fired clay, capering and cavorting in miniature gardens, to a stately marble statue of Kannon, Tuan Yim, Quan Yin, standing at the far end of what appeared to be a quarter mile long immaculate rock garden with sand and gravel 'water', but an optical illusion as the garden was only some 30 feet long. 
It was obvious I would have had to have spent weeks, a lot of it on hands and knees, to take in the intricacies of the garden, no doubt missing much. I was led down a path and introduced to some of the more preeminent celebrities. The prince and princess. Two bonsai leaning towards each other immediately obvious: two lovers, arms outstretched towards each other. A myriad of perfectly arranged and trimmed branches about their trunks made it easy to imagine regal kimonos. Mount Fuji at sunrise completely defied sensibilities, a little rise with a progression of cherry trees reaching up it's slopes. From a foot tall at the base to mere inches in the 'far distance', all of about 6 feet away. The General, again obvious, a gnarled hoary bonsai sitting in solitary grandeur upon a rock, the ancient venerable Samurai with one hand, bough, upon the hilt of his weapon, a naked stem, the other hand upon his knee, a perfectly bent root.
The 'Garden at Honshu' successfully mangled my  brain. A slight rise of rock and gravel interspersed with earth, and a large flat boulder a few feet away obviously there for sitting upon and taking in the view. Dozens of miniature bonsai growing everywhere giving the impression of a large bonsai garden. Just sit there and take in the eye candy. Don't get up and look closely. All the 'trees' were one single tree, the interconnecting roots visible in little glimpses throughout.
The Shogunate was a work in progress. The Shogun, a massive affair of root and trunk nearly 3 feet tall. His precisely trimmed soldiers arrayed in ranks at his sides and behind. He glowered down at a small plain rough though neatly clipped peasant kneeling before him. I was told this was a young --- (Japanese word I didn't catch), only some 30 years in the making. 
And another miniature garden which was the model of a real garden at some estate in Japan. Numerous paths, only a few inches wide, lilly ponds, tiny bridges neatly painted, bamboo borders, grasses and hedges, and several dozen bonsai meticulously groomed to portray other non bonsai species of plants as roses, and climbing vines, willows and fruit trees.

It is gauche to mention it was all organic and of course, nothing synthetic. Even much of the wires used to shape the trees was chosen to rust away over time leaving no trace they had been there. Many of the plants worked upon knowing it would be several generations of effort to complete the displays.

I was joined by a young man. Describe him as perpetually cheerful. Even in deep concentration trimming a branch his lips tended to curl into a smile. We got to chatting and he mentioned his entire family back for many generations were Zen Buddhists. Some became masters. As in drawing the dandelions so gently from the lawn, a Zen master gardener.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Louise E. Rothstein (Jun 10, 2014)

He certainly was!!!

A ZEN master gardener!!!

His "dandelion drawing" technique is the most effective that I have ever heard of.

I believe that it would work wonders with many species... besides the one mentioned.

Thanks for sharing!!!

Reactions: Like 1


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## The Snark (Jun 11, 2014)

'The Garden at Honshu' was from a series of cuttings commemorating the Fujiwara clan's rise to power around 800 to 1200. The Fujiwara clan's method of maintaining power was to keep the political power within the family. Hence the multiple trees growing from a single root stock.
The General was started during the mid Tokugawa period around 1700.

I didn't even begin to describe the garden. Ornate knots tied in the trunks and branches of trees or trees trained to grow seats around a tree table and on and on.


Actually, the Zen aspect is only logical as it is based upon the realization, awareness, - insight - of the affinity and connection of all living things,


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## Billy 5ek (Jun 11, 2014)

That was amazing. I am a student of landscape arhitecture and I really appreciate your post. I assume you didn't take any pics,they would certainly be very interesting. Gr8 post and read. If you have any similar experiences please do share. 

Thanks again for sharing

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2


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## The Snark (Jun 11, 2014)

Billy 5ek said:


> That was amazing. I am a student of landscape arhitecture and I really appreciate your post. I assume you didn't take any pics,they would certainly be very interesting. Gr8 post and read. If you have any similar experiences please do share.
> 
> Thanks again for sharing
> 
> Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2


I got the distinct impression that taking pictures, even asking, would be wrong. The garden was for experiencing. It's effect upon your physical presence.  And anyway, something like The Garden at Honshu would be a major photo essay trying to get all the minute details. As I have never seen any pictures that have come from that garden I feel I read things right. A few little bits of that families efforts I believe have surfaced in other gardens as Descanso and the Huntington private collection though.

It really takes a student of landscaping, or as myself, the offspring of a gardener, or it seriously helps, to fully appreciate something like that. As my father and the honest 50,000+ hours he put into the gardens he was caretaker of was just a blink of an eye compared to what had gone into that place.


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## Billy 5ek (Jun 13, 2014)

The Snark said:


> I got the distinct impression that taking pictures, even asking, would be wrong. The garden was for experiencing. It's effect upon your physical presence.  And anyway, something like The Garden at Honshu would be a major photo essay trying to get all the minute details. As I have never seen any pictures that have come from that garden I feel I read things right. A few little bits of that families efforts I believe have surfaced in other gardens as Descanso and the Huntington private collection though.
> 
> It really takes a student of landscaping, or as myself, the offspring of a gardener, or it seriously helps, to fully appreciate something like that. As my father and the honest 50,000+ hours he put into the gardens he was caretaker of was just a blink of an eye compared to what had gone into that place.


I agree,it probably would be wrong. But I had to ask,seeing even a glimpse of it would be pretty awesome. Appropriate landscaping and caring takes huge amount of hours,even with a small garden,not to mention the big ones. I wish I could see it with my own eyes =)


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## ARACHNO-SMACK48 (Jun 13, 2014)

What a beautiful story.


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## lagomorphette (Jun 19, 2014)

Such a lovely, vivid, and well-written description; I could clearly picture this in my head. While there was no need for photos, I can understand why people might love to see the garden based on the lush description. Is this part of a book? Is it a memoir or fictional? Surely it wasn't plunked out for a casual post! 

Thanks for posting.


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## The Snark (Jun 19, 2014)

Just a memory that wanted to get written

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