Guest contributor: Alexander Senauke, Blog at www.setting-roots.com
All photographs courtesy of Alexander Senauke.
Like many people I’ve met who work in arboriculture, my path into the industry was fairly circuitous. More unusual is the fact that my interest in trees was stirred in a time and a place far removed from my everyday circumstances.
At the height of the pandemic, I found myself engaged in spiritual training at a monastery in Japan. It was there that I was introduced not only to traditional Zen Buddhist forms, but also to the variety of plant and tree species so central to Japanese culture.
As a new arrival and spiritual novice, I did not have many opportunities to work closely with the trees at the temple. Skilled tree work, such as seasonal pruning of matsu (Japanese black pine), was performed by more senior monks or by local residents who had long decades of experience. All the same, it was deeply inspiring to witness the way that pruning could express both technical craft and spiritual attentiveness.
The most renowned tree at the temple was a mature weeping sakura (cherry tree) which overlooks a reflecting pond. In the years prior to my arrival, the tree’s health had been in decline, but fortunately a skilled team of arborists had been able to revitalize it. These arborists still paid annual visits to work on the tree, during which time they stayed onsite at the temple and began each morning with their own Buddhist service. When they left, we were told not to walk on the earth at the base of the tree. I know now that this restriction was based on the tenets of “plant health care,” but at the time, it had the air of spiritual rite and sanction.
When I returned to America, I longed to recapture the relationship between people and trees that I saw in Japan, and I was fortunate to discover the community of Aesthetic Pruners right in my hometown. Aesthetic Pruning is a tradition based on the work of Dennis Makashima, a bonsai master and a member of the Japanese-American sansei or third generation. In short, Aesthetic Pruning seeks to apply techniques found in bonsai to landscape trees and shrubs. Although the Aesthetic Pruning Club operates in conjunction with Merritt College in Oakland, all of its lectures and classes are offered to the general public as well as students.
Working with the Aesthetic Pruners has introduced me to many interesting and historic trees. I have pruned in the shadow of a century-old ginkgo tree at the Shinn Arboretum in Fremont, and beside much older—and much smaller!—bonsai at the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt in Oakland.
Sometimes a newcomer like myself will make an ill-considered cut and complain about “making a hole” in the canopy, to which a more experienced pruner will tell them: “We don’t call them holes, we call them windows.” This brings to mind a 21st century Zen adage: that one’s spiritual practice truly consists of “one continuous mistake.”
In Japan, I learned that it takes a village to care for a tree. Much of the work can be performed by everyday citizens, providing that they have the proper training and experience. In the US, this kind of training can be hard to come by. For now it may be up to groups such as the Aesthetic Pruners to teach the fundamentals of arboriculture outside of the academy and the commercial tree care industry. My hope for myself is that the principles of Aesthetic Pruning, and their Zen philosophical analogues, will provide a foundation for a career spent around extraordinary trees.