Stretching the term niwaki (literally garden tree) to its limit, here's a collection of pictures aimed to inspire. Crossing the boundaries between authentic Japanese pruning, western topiary, modern organic topiary, and all sorts of other stuff!
Images marked J are of my own work, usually down in Dorset. All photography by me, unless mentioned.
All photography by me, unless mentioned. (If you're interested, I use a nikon D200, usually with a 28 or 35mm lens, and a Ricoh GRD. I don't do much editing, but ocassionally jack the saturation up a bit!)
Updated occassionally, new ones at the top.

© Jake Hobson 2008

Back to Latest Pictures

Just got back from San Francisco. Good food, great trees:

The Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park

View of Golden Gate Park from the art Museum

Japanesey techniques, California-style.

A fine example of how not to train pines. This is in the Japantown area, where there are lots of very well-trained trees, but this one misses the mark. The bamboo, taken on a camera phone, is plastic, but a fine example of how to prune bamboo!

Black pines in November. They've clipped the needles in the top picture, for a tidier finish, but the tips scorch a bit. Bottom picture has been tightly pruned but not clipped.

Front gardens in Japan...

town garden up north somewhere.

village garden down south.

village garden outside Osaka.

Young pines at Ise-jingu. A good pointer as to how pines are developed- compare them to the more mature ones behind.

Podocarpus macrophyllus (maki)

A ball-bearing factory in the countryside outside Osaka.How many ball-bearing factories do you know with gardens like that?

Cupressus glabra, yew twmps and stone stacks. Dorset. J.

Konchi-in, Kyoto.

Hill-top village of Gordes, Provence.

Pollarded plane trees. City Hall, San Francisco. This was the setting for the finale of
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' where Donald Sutherland lets on that he too has been snatched!