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I had the opportunity to visit the Kubota Garden in southeast Seattle last fall as part of a staff enrichment day for the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.\u00a0 It was my first visit in decades, a time in which I have visited many notable public gardens throughout North America and in parts of Europe.\u00a0 For all my travels, I had been overlooking a garden treasure very close to home.<\/p>\n
My enjoyment from that visit was enhanced by learning that a new book, \u201cSpirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota\u2019s Garden,\u201d was in production.\u00a0 It is amazing!<\/p>\n
A major part of this book is a biography of Fujitar\u014d Kubota (1879-1973) with contributions by several different authors.\u00a0 Growing up in a rice farming family on one of the smaller Japanese islands, he was mostly self-taught in botany and the aesthetics of gardening.\u00a0 His humble background precluded him from being trained in the rigid traditions of designing Japanese gardens.<\/p>\n
He left his family and after several stops, he completed his emigration to Seattle in 1910.\u00a0 He eventually purchased five acres in the Rainier Valley but only with help, as a Japanese citizen he was not allowed to own property outright.\u00a0 That was the beginning of the garden he developed and nurtured for the next 50 years.\u00a0 It was also the base for his livelihood as a garden designer and installer, and the site for growing his extensive nursery stock.<\/p>\n
Kubota created demonstration gardens along a roadway that allowed customers to drive through and choose their favorites from various garden vignettes, which he would reproduce at their homes.\u00a0 A typical contract included the expected details of construction and landscape materials, but the choice of plantings were at the discretion of Kubota. \u00a0His story captures much of the history of garden design practices and nurseries in Seattle in the first half of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n Kubota\u2019s garden also became a center for the Issei, or first generation Japanese community, and the many immigrant and minority communities that settled in the Rainier Beach neighborhood.\u00a0 Critical to nurturing this cooperative spirit were Kubota\u2019s spiritual beliefs.\u00a0 He was a practitioner of Konk\u014dky\u014d, a 19th<\/sup> century development out of Shinto and Buddhist animistic traditions.\u00a0 From this comes his understanding of the spirited stone of the book\u2019s title.\u00a0 One of the books essayists, Jason Wirth, summarizes this quality: \u201cThe garden nourishes and heals because it channels a kind of archaic earth awakening.\u201d<\/p>\n The richness of this book is the mix of essays written in prose or poetry, or expressed in photographs, by many different authors from a variety of backgrounds. \u00a0Some are by the expected landscape architects and historians, while other chapters reflect personal journeys, influenced by the garden, written by noted members of the Asian-American, African-American, or mixed race communities in the neighborhood or the region.<\/p>\n Many of these stories are stark, including the incarceration of Kubota and his family during World War II and his heartbreak of coming back to a neglected garden.\u00a0 But this story also shows his strength, in designing a garden at the prison camp in Minidoka, Idaho, and tackling the hard work of restoring the Seattle garden upon his return.<\/p>\n It is difficult to select a primary author for this book, but for the excellence of the extensive photographs, the Library of Congress record appropriately gives credit to Gemina Garland-Lewis.\u00a0 Historical photos further enhance the reader\u2019s enjoyment, as do the quiet, black-and-white images by Nathan Wirth.\u00a0 The whole of \u201cSpirited Stone\u201d is best captured by writer Betsy Anderson: \u201cKubota Garden is a complex palimpsest of culture and nature that merits examination from an almost endless number of perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Excerpted from the Fall 2020 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had the opportunity to visit the Kubota Garden in southeast Seattle last fall as part of a staff enrichment day for the University of Washington Botanic Gardens.\u00a0 It was my first visit in decades, a time in which I have visited many notable public gardens throughout North America and in parts of Europe.\u00a0 For all my travels, I had been overlooking a garden treasure very close to home. My enjoyment from that visit was enhanced by learning that a…<\/p>\n