Kuboto Garden! an Authentic Japanese Garden in Seattle with Flashy Japanese Maples!

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Hey y’all and welcome to the Mr Maple show I’m here with Matt my brother Matt and Shan Sean my brother from another mother it’s good to have you in the video glad to be here y’all this is Kabota Garden part two if you haven’t seen part one go check that out the

Kabota Garden is one of the most beautiful gardens in all of America it’s in Seattle Washington and this place is a Japanese garden with a lot going on and a lot of color and a lot of flare yeah we were here with the North American Maple Society uh we actually

Shot a podcast with them with Don Brooks so as soon as you finish watching this video go over and check out that podcast with Don Brooks and part one if you can’t get enough of kaboto gardens Don has put his inut on this place he he’s

Such an influential guy here and this is one of my all-time favorite Japanese Maple Gardens what I really like is when talking to Don he used this term called cram spacing so when you look at this you can see everything it just wasn’t thrown in but he had this idea of in

Nature things grow together things grow close so he intentionally had things in this garden growing together growing close but there’s still the methodical arrangement of the plants so there’s this great mix you really feel like you’re in nature but it was also planned yeah I love that it also allows less

Space for weeds for uh you know plants that are invasive to come in that you don’t want you’ve got something in every space so there’s not a lot left for the things you don’t want and the colors in this place are just impeccable I it’s one of my all-time favorite Gardens it

It has a little bit of everything you want whether it’s Walkin space whether it’s getting lost in nature whether it’s specific cultiv ours there’s outstanding plants of ginkos Maples conifers everywhere you go in this Garden there’s something new to check out I mean this

Is a city garden is owned by the city of Seattle which is crazy and so you have to find a way to make this low maintenance this cram spacing was a great way to be able to provide low maintenance gardening but have beautiful plants out there here in the garden for

Everyone to enjoy and you’ll see some photos mixed in here some of these photos you’ll see are actually shots from 10 years ago when Matt and I came and visited 10 years ago and so you may see some shots what they look like 10 years ago and some shots from what they

Look like today the moving uh the moving video that’s today and the actual static photos those are actually from 10 years ago I really liked all the paths through this Garden it took you down a certain path but then as you came down you’d come across another path that led you in a

Different direction and it was such an easy walking Garden but so much stuff to take in the pathways over the waterways I mean that’s something that you see all the time in traditional Japanese gardening it helps you feel like the the water and the pond itself as part of the

Garden and it’s just a a fun way to be able to enjoy that you get to enjoy the Reflections in the ponds again you see a lot of the maple Society here the North American branch of the maple societ is a great group of individuals you should go

Join today if you can you can join online if you’re in the North American Branch if you’re in North America that’s where you sign up if you’re a part of Europe or different branches you can actually sign up on maples.org the North American branch has their own website

Where you can actually sign up quarterly uh you get all these awesome quarterly that have tons of information on japanes Maples there’s annual meetings lots of meetups and fun groups of people where you can learn about Japanese maple so check them out the North American brand

To the maple side you can sign up today online now one great thing about this Garden is it’s got a lot of different seasonal interests so when you ask Don when you should go visit he says whenever whatever season you’re in that’s when you should go visit there’s

Fall color if you’re going in the fall there’s spring interest there’s flowering plants there’s Evergreens if you’re going when they’re completely in Winter and uh just some outstanding shapes I mean look at that lace Leaf right there I love the old specimens and a lot of these trees have been in the ground

For quite a while and have started to develop their own unique and interesting character and that adds to the Garden as well I mean a lot of these trees now are almost Monumental trees that people just remember about this garden and about Seattle love the water too I mean that’s

Such a key element in Japanese gardening it’s a relaxing peaceful element to it but man it really adds a lot and it just especially the the maple stretched out and the Conifer stretched out over some of the water features uh just adds so much going on there and I like the use

Of Evergreens around the maples in fall color because it brings the maple fall color to the Forefront I mean everything else is green and then all of a sudden fall color Wham it hits you and that’s what this Garden is set up to do it’s it’s to evoke that that that idea and

That beauty that’s in nature of all these different trees and really put a focus on all these cool plants and now what I really think is neat about this Garden as well is that if you’re a home landscaper and you’re looking for ideas and something that

That was talked about when we did the podcast was is you can come out here and find just a certain part a bed and say you know what I could do that in my own landscape myself I really like how it’s not flat that the that there’s levels to this Garden there there’s somewhere you’re below and you’re looking up into the trees and there’s points where you’re standing at a higher elevation looking down at the bed and that’s really Cool and the use of the water the use of the rocks and then the use of the plants with different textures I mean if you didn’t see the soft and the hard Textures in there you might get lost but mixing them together makes it not boring makes it interesting makes it something

That you’re looking at and you’re like wow and then you see the colors that start throwing out there I mean this place is just exceptional and beautiful I love the pathways too there’s so much to be said about a garden that takes you you know kind of on the stroll where you’re supposed to go you go it takes you to all the great plants uh you can kind of just follow the tour there now

There’s so many different little areas you can kind of get lost into so you can kind of find different Pathways to travel on we were staying a little bit away from the group we had the North American Maple C here so we were we were kind of following our own path a little

Bit and getting away from the group just to kind of show you what this Garden looks Like Kabota Garden has a lot of good history we talked about that a little bit in part one and you know it’s this Japanese family that uh went to internment camps gave the land over to friends got it back then donated to the city of Seattle uh it’s sort of this

Forgiveness garden and it’s it’s amazing that one family decided I’m going to give this land and this Garden to the city and now this whole garden 20 plus acres is something that everyone can enjoy and not just enjoy but enjoy traditional Japanese uh gardening Concepts in enjoy Japanese maples enjoy

What these people thought of when they thought of how to create a garden and Don Brooks who we interviewed really took those same Concepts and then continue this on for a number of years he since retired but this Garden is exactly what I love about about

Gardening it’s just a lot of beauty you can still enjoy the garden but you still have amazing plants in that garden and that’s something as collectors were always trying to figure out is how do I take my collection and enjoy it as a garden and this Garden does that with amazing plants amazing

Style and in a very unique way I love you can get back in the shade and kind of Hide Away here there’s so many different aspects of this place the hardscaping is done in a way that you really get a whole different emotion a whole different feel every time you get

Into these different areas yeah I like how you were able to walk down the path and next thing you know the canopy above you you’re underneath the trees and when you do that you can actually see the structures of the Japanese maple so well and that’s one of

The things that is not appreciated enough about Japanese maples we always look at the foliage but the structure of Japanese maples is one of the prettiest of any tree that’s out there and being able to get in there and actually see into the structure of a Japanese maple is just

Outstanding and something I think is really special about this Garden is that for anyone that wants to visit it there is no admission fee this is open and free to the public this was actually a real cool Plant that fell down rooted in to the ground then started growing back up

Again I don’t know if we got a good capture of that but literally this big tree fell down and they decided to leave it and then it rooted in the ground and then popped back up and started growing um uh into a tree again I thought that was one of the

Coolest things I’d seen because normally when a tree falls down people remove it but instead they decided to let it be part of the garden and then it created this unique thing that everyone can Enjoy one of the casualties there of a fallen Branch took that out they keep shaping this tree to have more unique habits to it I’m sure look at this beside it too I love the mimicry that the kind of the way it mimics that uh that growth you see there and there’s

Just so much contorted gnarliness now this area is in Seattle so the ferns the Moss the Lykan all natural elements here to the Pacific Northwest and it kind of gives you that I’d say forced feel to this whole place as well and this Blue Atlas Cedar was just Mass massive

Massive I mean the size of the trunk on the inside I mean it was just crazy and then just getting to be able to go inside and look at that that’s just one of those fun things to look at the structures of plants I mean they’re so unique

Architecturally and it’s just one of those things just to go in and just really just capture those moments yeah walking through and seeing all the different structures there were really times where you kind of felt like you’re in this mythological forest in some sci-fi or some movie and

I mean just the the turns that you go Through I love it so much going on here um the water features were headed up to are so great the walls around the place uh the use of Maples and shapes got Maple celebrities and Conifer celebrities around every corner you may see people like Bob finchum you

Recognize sitting there we go through uh you know Talon buckolz is here hanging out there’s so many great people we did do a great top five with him there’s two parts to that uh so definitely check out Bob fincham’s top five conifers that one’s already aired and there’s another

Bob finum video on the way had a lot of requests Bob if you’re listening to have you on the podcast we may have to get you on the podcast at some point people really appreciated your Conor for Knowledge I mean there’s a lot of genos used here at Kabota Garden that’s one thing that we saw a lot in Japan as well they’re in traditional Japanese gardening you see a lot of goo trees used throughout the gardens just like this as a single tree to add that extra

Bit of bright yellow fall color that extra flare out there in the Garden what I also liked about this Garden was there’s a lot of cultivars out there but there’s also a lot of just species out there that you get to see you know it may not have a cultivar name to it but you get to see these mixed in all together it’s really really

Cool all right guys check this out we’re here with the original Acer pomum baby ghost Here’s one of the shots of the May kujaku that’s there that actually a shot uh it it’s just one of those plants that’s just a huge specimen there I mean I think the first time we went to visit it was in perfect fall color and it is

Just outstanding so much Stone in this Garden too like they have brought in I mean millions of dollars of stone the stone they have around is incredible and we’ve got this kind of Maple and Conifer collection you need some rocks you need some you need some natural aspects for

Those to play off of and they got it at cabota I mean it’s got everything you want I think I could go here in spring when a lot of these rododendron and aelas are in bloom and just have equally as good a time now that shot right there

That looks like Kyoto I mean that looks like a Kyoto Open Garden uh it just really recreates a lot of what I love about Japan and the use of the conifers in the background and the taller conifers really make you feel like you’re in the Pacific Northwest but you’ve got a

Garden a Japanese garden here in theic paic Northwest so I mean it it it is so so next level what Kabota Garden Does makes me think of your vertical gardening Sean all that those tall trees out through there how important that is to just draw your eye throughout the landscape well that’s what this Garden does so well is that it it with that vertical you’re talking about you’re looking for flow to move your eyes

Through the garden and this Garden is so set up so well that your eyes and not just your eyes this Garden moves you through itself where you’re going to say what’s that what’s that and you’re going to just keep walking and keep going through and there’s something new around every

Corner that’s what keeps gardening interesting it keeps your brain working whenever you had these differences you have this musical melody going on across the garden it just keeps it interesting I mean if it was all box would it would be boring it’s a hard place to shoot

Though I think we got a lot of good shots from this place but there’s so many elements of this Garden where you’re you’re in a small area like the trail isn’t big so you can’t just follow somebody through this garden and video them because you know they’re a One path

Trail right I mean you might get two people side by side down this Trail but you’re not getting two people in a camera a lot of areas have that like exclusivity kind of feel to them like you’re going down an area where you know it’s private you’re to yourself and then

You you can experience this waterfall in some of the bigger open areas but there’s a lot of places you get in this Garden where it feels very private and and secluded which I love yeah you’re absolutely right to to properly do a garden like this Justice to go in and

Document and film it would take we’d have to be there for over a month day after day just to be able to there’s so much things that change I think you could shoot this guard in every single season too I mean there’s so much going on and and there’s a lot

Of a lot of expertise behind the level of plant collecting and we mentioned in the other video on kaboto here’s a great example you’re not getting a whole camera crew down this Alleyway right I barely get down this Alleyway I got to suck it in to get through here uh but

There’s so many cool little places you can get lost in and there’s so much nice collectible plants here like the original baby ghost is in this Garden there’s some predominant plants are in this Garden from buckolz um you know from Carl mun they have some species that are just or some uh

Cultivars that are just so next level a little bit of species collecting but it’s just a great garden with so much diversity of horiculture and Botanical interest like you could go there if you’re just into red dendrons and aelas and you’re going to come away thinking

Wow I went to a great Garden you can go there if you’re just into conifers you’re going to come away going we got to see some amazing you know conifers pruned in different floating cloud Styles and just different aspects of that and it’s these big open areas that

Kind of give you that Kyoto feel uh Kyoto you know known for its big areas and Landscapes I thought it was interesting too Don said sometimes people when to ask him you know what was specifically this one rock here for he’s like well sometimes you know some of these rocks

Or plants don’t have an exact reason they’re exactly there they’re there because they look good they’re there because they contrasted well with something else and that it’s more about a consistent theme across the entire Garden rather than each individual piece uh in the garden itself and sometimes we

Overthink gardening I mean gardening is meant to for enjoyment and meant to go out there and have fun and when we over complicate it and we want to have a thought process behind each and every rock you know sometimes that’s that’s over a little bit Overkill and takes out

What we think is actually fun about gardening yeah this Garden’s kind of like the the mullet of gardens it’s business in the front and party in the back it it there’s there’s a part of it where everything is controlled where it looks like it was put there but then

There’s also that wild aspect to it I love it it’s Controlled Chaos at its greatest I love this place um it’s one of my alltime favorite Gardens it’s got so much going on and like we said you could spend two weeks here and not really capture every single thing about this

Place the viewpoints are so different from every angle and you can really enjoy the same view in different ways from different viewpoints in different rooms across the gardens and it is just well thought out but also something that is just it’s it’s a it’s a Living Art I mean if you

Ever get a chance to go visit Kabota Gardens I capota Garden I highly recommend it I mean it is one of the next level Gardens that you can find in the United States and join the maple Society here we got Talon buckles Marcus turville in

Front of him walking down the hill a lot of cool friendly faces uh this is actually from our tour in 2011 we spoke at the maple Sid meeting uh goofy Matt without a beard probably the last time I didn’t have a beard was in 2011 at this meeting I’m ashamed to Say I love how similar the garden was too to 2011 it’s well-maintained it’s uh it’s got everything you want going on and uh I I was just in shock and awe the first time I got to go here I really enjoyed It it really looked very very similar the plants got bigger we have the same the same themes going across and they did a good job of maintaining everything all across this Garden it was fun to get to go and see you know some of these exact spots of uh memories and photos

That I enjoyed throughout the years here we’re coming up here on a a shot that I really loved uh of this Garden but specifically that bright orange uh weeping Japanese maple I got the camo on that’s from 10 years ago thanks y all so much for watching take care God bless have a great day