Garden Maintenance Pruning

On Shaping Nature

by William Will

One of the most characteristic features of Japanese gardens is that the plant materials used to create the composition are carefully chosen for their individual characteristics and shaped through the application of specialized pruning techniques.

While most of the excellent books available on the Japanese garden give an overview of the cultural origins, history, and styles of gardens, unfortunately they often give little or no attention to the roll that maintenance plays in creating and continuously shaping and reshaping a garden landscape.

Almost all the shrubs and trees found in Japanese gardens are pruned and shaped from an early age and continue to be pruned on a regular basis, even if they are mature trees, decades or even hundreds of years old. As old branches die away, the trees are reshaped, so that any composition is undergoing constant change.

The amount of effort and consistency that Japanese gardeners invest in this process far exceeds anything I know of in the West, and it is a major contributing factor to the beauty and elegance that we perceive in these gardens. It is also one of the main reasons that many of the ‘Japanese’ gardens abroad lack the true quality of the gardens found in Japan. In larger gardens with hundreds of shrubs and large mature trees, thousands of hours are invested annually to maintain the balanced shape of the entire garden composition.

The techniques applied in pruning large trees have several major goals:

• aesthetic: to help the tree evolve it’s natural shape and beauty, while maintaining an open branch structure, without branch crossings.


• optimal health: to reduce the amount of weight large branches must support by reducing the amount of growth, removing dead branches as they die off.


• compositional: to maintain the balance of an overall composition by keeping the relative size of trees under constant control.

While larger trees may not require annual pruning, every few years a major pruning is required. In some cases, e.g. with mature conifers that may be 20 or 30 yards in height, this is only achievable by building a large scaffold that surrounds the entire tree and allows easy access to its upper branches without causing damage.

Many of the techniques and tools used in the pruning process are similar to those used in the shaping and maintenance of bonsai, the miniature potted trees and plants more familiar to the western viewer. The underlying aesthetic is similar, and those also familiar with the art of ikebana (flower arranging) will notice further parallels.