Journal
Field documentation, research, and insights on tree culture, diagnosis, gardens, and urban trees.
Cornerstone article
Tree Diagnosis
A sonic tomograph does not photograph the inside of a tree. It measures one thing only: how long a stress wave takes to travel from one sensor to another. Everything you see…
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Tree Diagnosis
A sonic tomograph does not photograph the inside of a tree. It measures one thing only: how long a stress…
Tree Diagnosis
Hiroshima’s survivor trees — hibakujumoku (被爆樹木), the trees that lived through the atomic bombing of 6 August 1945 — still lean toward…
Tree Diagnosis
A resistograph does not show you the inside of a tree. It records resistance along a single line — the…
Tree Culture
Garyu-zakura (臥龍桜), the “reclining dragon cherry tree” of Hida Takayama, is an Edohigan cherry estimated at 1,100 years old and designated a…
Heritage Tree
The great ginkgo of Hida Kokubunji is an estimated 1,200-year-old tree standing in the temple grounds in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture…
Tree Culture
How Kyoto foresters grow straight cedar without felling a tree: the origins, mechanics, and modern lessons of daisugi — explained…
Tree Culture
Shakkei turns distant mountains into part of the garden. A Japanese arborist explains the four classical techniques and how to…
Urban Landscape
Why do Japanese trees survive typhoons? Field-tested pruning and staking methods from Japan's typhoon belt, explained step by step by…
Tree Culture
Midori-tsumi, Japan's spring candle-pinching of pines: how one week of fieldwork shapes a pine's silhouette for decades — from a…