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Photograph by George Sakkestad

The traditional bamboo garden at Hakone is one of the many things Japanese garden specialist Jack Tomlinson created during his 32 year at the gardens.

Blooming Career

Jack Tomlinson is the garden specialist at Hakone Gardens

By Shannon Burkey

Jack Tomlinson felt a very strong connection to Hakone Gardens from the moment he first walked through the gates.

It has been 32 years since that day, but his feelings are as strong as ever.

"When I saw the gardens for the first time, it was love at first sight," he says. "Hakone is kind of like my baby. I've bonded with this garden. It's a period garden that takes you back to a time when Japanese culture was more pure and traditional than it is today."

Tomlinson, Hakone's Japanese garden specialist, says he has always had an affinity for planting seeds and trees and watching them grow into something magnificent. But becoming a gardener, especially one recognized around the globe for maintaining the true integrity and beauty of the classic Japanese garden that is Hakone, is something he kind of fell into.

The path to Hakone began for Tomlinson in 1973 when, after graduating from the UC-Santa Cruz with a degree in liberal arts, he decided to return to his hometown of Saratoga and got a job with the city's parks department.

In 1966, the city of Saratoga purchased the 18-acre Hakone for $145,000 and it became the city's first park. Then, wanting to restore it to its original splendor, the city hired Tanso Ishihara, a Kyoto-trained Japanese garden specialist, to tend to the gardens.

"At that time, Hakone was quite different. It was sort of going through a transition and it definitely needed a lot of work," Tomlinson says.

Prior to working for the city, Tomlinson had never laid eyes on Hakone, but in 1975 the city assigned him to work with Ishihara at the gardens, and that began an apprenticeship that would lead Tomlinson into a long career as a Japanese garden specialist himself.

Although he did not know he would eventually end up looking after the only authentic Japanese garden in the country, long before he chose his career, he had begun to immerse himself in Japanese culture.

While a student at UC-Santa Cruz, Tomlinson's roommate was Kent Nagano, a Japanese American.

"During that time, he himself was kind of going through a rediscovery of his Japanese roots," Tomlinson says. "Being his friend, I learned a lot about the culture from him, and then when I met Tanso, he was totally Japanese and I learned a lot more from him."

Tomlinson admits when he first came to Hakone he didn't know too much about Japanese-style gardens and prior to that gardening had only been a hobby, but he says he liked the look and style of the Japanese garden and was eager to learn more.

For five years, under the tutelage of Ishihara, he absorbed all he could about the history and traditions of Japanese gardens.

"Tanso was a very interesting and intent personality. He was very interested in preserving traditional Japanese culture, which he thought was being lost," Tomlinson says. "He was very intense about tradition and that's what Hakone is about--tradition."

Another break for Tomlinson, when it came to learning about the Japanese garden culture, came shortly after he began working with Ishihara.

To help rejuvenate the gardens and expand onto the surrounding uninhabited site, Ishihara hired renowned Japanese architect Kiyoshi Yasui. Together the two came up with a master plan for the gardens.

Now, Tomlinson had two experts to learn from and he says he relished his time with them.

"What Tanso and Yasui wanted to do was take this diamond in the rough and make it one of the great gardens in American and one of the great Japanese gardens in the world," Tomlinson says. "We were honored that Mr. Yasui wanted to help Hakone to such a degree and make sure we were doing the right thing. So many Japanese gardens are not the real thing. But Mr. Yasui is the real McCoy in Japan and knows what he is doing."

During his time working under Ishihara and Yasui, Tomlinson was involved in several major projects, such as the construction of the camellia hillside, a side of the mountain rife with Japanese camellia trees, and the high trails and the repair of the ponds and waterfalls.

But things at Hakone changed in 1980 when Ishihara died in an accident while on vacation in Japan.

Tomlinson was named his successor, and along with Yasui, continued to work on fulfilling Ishihara's dream of seeing the Hakone master plan completed.

"A lot of what you see here today wasn't here before," Tomlinson says. "We had a vision, and so many times visions are nice but they don't ever happen. But this time the vision happened and we fulfilled it."

During the ensuing years with Yasui, Tomlinson says the two developed a close friendship as he continued to soak up all he could about Japanese gardens.

"He's one of those people in your life that you just admire the most," Tomlinson says. "It's kind of like being touched by the gods, I guess. Certain people are at such a level of their knowledge, not to mention his commitment to Hakone. He really supported me and helped me, and at the time I was doing my best to carry out his vision."

In 1980, Yasui took Tomlinson to Japan for three months to study the gardens of historic Kyoto, the Japanese capital and emperor's residence from 794 to 1868.

"I got a really intensive education while I was there," he says. "Kyoto is like the holy land for Japanese gardens. The majority of the great famous gardens that exist today are in Kyoto, and for someone interested in Japanese gardens, it's the place to go."

Since the time Tomlinson took over, the garden has doubled in size, adding a bamboo garden, the Cultural Exchange Center and a tea garden.

Tomlinson and Yasui felt strongly that in order to bring real Japanese culture to Hakone, they needed to import those plants and trees that have had a large influence on Japan, such as tea plants and bamboo.

"Tea was one of the things we thought would be really interesting to grow here. Most people have never actually seen it growing," Tomlinson says. "But we're growing it here and we'll make tea out of it when it gets bigger. All of the seeds we've used in the tea garden have come from Japan, and we've used some rooted cuttings from some hybrid teas, too."

Today, as he walks through the gates, it's as if his baby has grown up. Redwood trees that he planted 30 years ago now tower over the gardens and the camellia trees, which were also planted nearly 30 years ago, are mature trees that blossom with vibrant flowers in February.

"The camellias are one of the most beautiful blossoming trees in Japan," he says. "You always want to have a lot of them because they are the first thing to bloom in the winter and they have such an impact."

Tomlinson says he doesn't have a favorite part of the garden, but one of his favorite parts about being its caretaker is having the opportunity to enjoy it at its best throughout the year--and cherry blossom time is his favorite time of year.

Watching the cherry blossom trees of Hakone bloom year after year made him long to see the spectacle in Kyoto. So in 2000, his wife sent him to Japan to witness it first-hand. That experience brought with it all kinds of ideas about the possibilities at Hakone.

"The cherry blossom time in Kyoto is really fantastic," he says. "I came back here thinking that I could make Hakone even more like that."

So he came back and planted 15 more cherry blossom trees throughout Hakone. And though the blossoms don't last a long time--only about two weeks--it is visually thrilling, he says.

"To see them all come out, it's really such a powerful, showy display. It's like a symphony. They come in, light up and make a statement, and then they go back to being just a quiet tree. And because it lasts such a short time, it makes it so special," he says.

When it comes to the day-to-day care for Hakone, Tomlinson says he follows a Japanese philosophy that says, "Every moment, especially the moment you are in right now, is the most important." So he does what he needs to do moment by moment, little by little, to keep the gardens thriving.

"It's amazing to look back over 30 years and see how this has all come about as a result of just doing those daily things and doing a little more every day. But that is what creating a garden is about," he says.

In a place such as Hakone, it has also helped to have time on his side.

"One of the things that is definitely important in a garden, any garden, but especially Hakone, is the element of time," he says. "You see it in the old wisteria trunks and things like that. You can't just plant a seed and have it look like that in a short time."

When doing the daily things, Tomlinson says he must also always be aware of the bigger picture of the garden.

"It's a balance of yin and yang. You have to have some kind of neatly trimmed stuff and some that are more natural. If everything is neatly trimmed, it loses interest. And if everything is too natural, it gets too wild-looking for the eye--you need a balance," he says.

The Japanese garden is important and interesting to so many people, Tomlinson says, and he's enjoyed every day that he has had the opportunity to preserve and share it with other. The garden has left its mark on Tomlinson, as he has on it, and as he hopes it continues to do on all that visit it.

"The ultimate goal of a good Japanese garden is to have the right feeling. Hakone is the old-fashioned Japanese garden you don't want to leave; you just feel like lingering there, getting closer to the sounds of the frogs and the fish and the insects and the trees," he says. "It's like creating a little paradise where nothing existed before. At Hakone, there was a beautiful view and mountainside, but there was no garden--all of this beauty was created by human beings."