The Spell of Japan

by Isabel Anderson

A Japanese Garden, Tokyo

Curiously shaped stones are carefully selected for the garden, each one having a name and a meaning attached to it. Standing upright in the centre should be the high "guardian stone." You may look for the "worshipping stone" in the foreground or on an island; you will find the "perfect view" on the hillside or in some prominent place; you discover the "water-tray stone" on the pond shore, and the "shadow stone" in the valley between two hills. Next to the "worshipping stone" is the "seat of honour," which is flat and horizontal. The "snail" is the most important stepping-stone.

Trees as well as stones have rank in the miniature landscape. The principal tree is the largest, and is as a rule either a pine or an oak. One in a secluded corner with thick foliage to afford shade is called the "tree of solitude." The "perfection tree" should have fine branches. Around the waterfall is planted the "cascade circuit," consisting of low bushes; and in the background is the "setting-sun tree," which is turned westward in order to screen the garden somewhat from the rays of the sun, and is often a maple that will light up the place with its own glow in the autumn.

In the literature of gardens we read of male and female cascades and rocks—just as of male and female styles of flower arrangement—the big one being the male, the smaller one near-by the female. The flowering tree is also considered a male, the plant in the same pot a female.

The dwarf trees, that looked so strange when we first saw them, soon became to us one of the delightful features of gardening in Japan. These, as well as the gardens themselves, originated in the love of nature, the Japanese wishing to have about them reduced copies of trees which they admired. As the demand for these pigmies has greatly increased in recent years and the process of dwarfing is slow, Japanese florists have discovered a way of making them by a speedier method. When they find old, stunted trees that have taken on unusual shapes—those that have become gnarled and twisted by growing among rocks are especially good for this purpose—they cut them back very closely, root and branch, then leave them to grow for a time in the soil. After this they take up the plants carefully without disturbing the earth immediately about the roots, and place them in pots. Trees even one hundred years old have been successfully treated in this way.

But this is not "real dwarfing," which was described to me by my Japanese gardener. For this process, if you wish to keep the tree very small, it is raised from seed sown in a pot. After the seedling has made the growth of the first year, it is taken up, and the earth is carefully shaken off the roots and replaced with soil adapted to the special needs of the tree, which is allowed to grow for two or three years. Then it is time to begin trimming it into shape, and here the same symbolic arrangement is followed as in Ike-bana, based upon the three main branches, Heaven, Man and Earth. Root-pruning must also be started after the growing season is over, and the larger roots cut away, leaving only the finer ones. If the branches run out too far in one direction, their growth is stopped by cutting off the roots on that side. A tree that is to be kept very small is not repotted until the roots have filled the pot; one that is to make a larger growth is transferred at an earlier date. By scraping off the top of the soil occasionally and putting on fresh earth repotting may be postponed for eight or ten years according to the kind of tree.

Dwarf maples from seed are ready for sale in two or three years; seedling pines require from five to ten years to fit them for the market, and plums four or five years. Lately, however, it has become the custom to graft the plum, cutting back the tree until only a contorted old stump is left, and grafting upon this. We had two such trees at the Embassy, which were simply old stumps filled with plum blossoms, one cluster pink and the other white, diffusing their perfume all over the house. They were very beautiful with a plain gold screen for a background.

All kinds of evergreens, oaks and maples, the plum and some other flowering trees, bamboos and every sort of flowering shrub, and some vines, such as the wisteria and the morning glory, are all used for dwarfing. Plants having thorns are never treated in this way, neither are they used in the decoration of shrines nor in real Japanese flower arrangement. For this reason the large, fine roses in which we take such delight, had never been cultivated in Japan until perhaps forty years ago, when the first one was brought from Holland, and the method of cultivation was also borrowed from the Dutch.

In gardens, these diminutive trees are carefully shaded from the rays of the afternoon sun, and special pains are taken to keep them well watered. When the temperature is above ninety degrees, they are watered three times a day—at eleven in the morning, and at two and five in the afternoon. If they are used as house plants, the care of them is a dignified occupation, in which even nobles and princes may engage in their own homes. As the use of ordinary fertilizers might be disagreeable to these exalted personages on account of their bad odour, a pleasant and economical way has been found of supplying the small quantity of nourishment needed from eggs. After an egg has been broken and the yolk and the white removed, the shell, with the small amount of albumen that adheres to it, is taken in the hand and the broken edge touched here and there to the soil of the pot, leaving on each spot a tiny drop of white of egg. This process, repeated from day to day, furnishes the little tree with all the nutriment it requires. Milk is also sometimes fed to these plants by the Japanese, who have discovered that it gives brighter colours to the flowers.