Conversation with a gardener

As already told about him for a few times, we have a gardener whom we ask to do gardening here. When he comes here for work, I always serve tea and something sweet for him at around 10 o'clock. And I enjoy talking with him for a while. He is as old as myself and, as I told before, was born in another countryside of the northern area of this prefecture. As soon as he graduated from a high school, he got a job for civil engineering at the municipal office nearby. Retired at age 60 years, he started working as a gardener. He told me he had been loving working for plants/trees since his young days. He seems to have found the real calling in gardening for now.

When he left home for work in the capital of the prefecture at around 20 years of age, I happened to spend a summer at the home of my sister and brother in law in their honeymoon in an area of the skirts of a big mountain named Nasu. He has grown up next to that area. Our lives have crossed each other that way. His love for plants/trees might have been brought up since those days.

He told me there were various kinds of trees in our country. It might be due to presence of definitely different four seasons and of different climates from subtropical to cold area. The ancient people have utilized those trees for different purposes. Persimmon trees have smooth surface and have been used for brazier owing to the comfortable touch on its surface. I understood why there had been so many buildings made of woods since Nara era in the 8th century. They must have utilized certain wood for particular portion of those buildings. Without the variety of the woods in our country, there could never be such a culture of wooden buildings.

The other thing I was most impressed at was that it took a long time for trees to grow up. He said an azalea 2 feet tall might require almost 10 years to grow from a tiny baby tree. Trees in our garden are mostly over 30 years of age. If I plant a young tree in our garden, it could only be a gift to the next generation. Almost all the trees in our garden were planted by my father. Not sure if he was conscious of that, I believe he has left those gifts to us. It is a string of lives in dual sense.

I could see a forest of various woods over a farm here. The sanatorium where my parents have started their marriage at the very same place as we live now used to be surrounded with these forests.

Unfortunately, the forest in this photo has not been cared for and is badly crowded with too many trees. The forestry has not been carried out as an industry anywhere in our country for many years. I and the gardener have agreed this situation is a quiet crisis for our culture.

It is always a pleasure for me to listen to him backed up with his affection and experience for gardening. In addition, he is an experienced flutist, who has been taking lesson from the same teacher my wife used to. 

I really hope, blessed with good health, he will go on working as a gardener and will help us to care for our big garden.