The shrub was very easy. In the world of lawns and trees, clipped shrubs provided a story in the middle. Inspired by our imagination’s Sisinghurst and the amazing Dixter, they were either cut out by balls or birds or built into the walls for outdoor rooms. Also, dense woody shrubs, classified as small trees, can now be used for topialization.
Afterwards, Jake Hobson, who learned sculpture before training in pruning techniques in Osaka, introduced cloud-based trees and shrubs to a larger audience. (His cult tool company Niwaki was named after the Japanese word “Garden Tree”). The small garden trees were pruned to capture the essence of larger, more mature specimens, with the wind-wondering, bent or lightning appearance of the wind. The shrubs were also pruned to convey a sense of the wider landscape. They may be rough and bumpy or shaped into more cloudy clumps.
However, while Cloudpruning was a victim of its own success, the developers placed boxwood and lollipop wooden balls and stuffed them together for the “character” instantly. Obviously, this is the opposite of Japanese pruning, a very slow process that doesn’t serve the trends and is a very slow process to learn and practice.
Naturalism is finally becoming mainstream, so who has a keen secure pair? The answer does not involve going wild to leave the garden.
NB: The above photo courtesy of Niwaki.
I first consulted with Jake Hobson. “As opposed to using pruned trees like the niwaki that I’m interested in, Japanese gardeners are creating a more forest atmosphere,” he says. “So they don’t have conifer trees, they have greener trees, and they don’t cut or shape them. They really delicately thin them out, put in light, and create that dappled early summer forest feel.
