Finely pruned

Who needs power tools? Not Michael Apostolos. The owner of Green Concepts in Scottsdale, Az., makes his living using hand tools. He and his wife/co-owner, Ardie, specialize in designing and building Japanese gardens, as well as pruning trees with hand tools. The use of hand tools dates back to the roots of Japanese gardens when there were no power tools, and the tradition has carried over to present day.

Apostolos and his wife started doing Bonsai, a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers, and progressed into doing gardens. Apostolos says they found that creating a Japanese garden is more than just having technical know-how.

“It’s not just designing the garden but knowing what that garden is going to need in five, 10, 15, 20 years – how those elements, the trees and shrubs, will evolve in that,” he says. “It’s the pruning and the techniques and knowing that and understanding when you do design the garden, and the elements of what it takes to maintain that garden so it looks like what you had originally planned and what people envisioned.”

Apostolos says the average Japanese garden costs about $20,000 to design and build, and could take from four to six months. “It is more expensive and that is something we try and make everyone aware of when they do a Japanese garden design. This isn’t just something you put out there … and don’t work at,” he says. “It’s consistent maintenance, be it cleaning, weeding all the way up to the pruning aspects.”

As part of the package, Apostolos gives customers basic tips so they can maintain the garden themselves, though they may need professional maintenance done about once a month, depending on how skilled the customers become.

“We certainly go and give them a primer on the basics of the pruning and suggest there are a number of good publications to read,”  Apostolos says.

Apostolos says that if a company wanted to add the service of pruning trees with hand tools, it would take about three weeks of classes and reading to learn the basics. A beginner will apprentice with a mentor on the pruning for three to five months on average.

But nothing beats trial by fire.

“(Learning) basically comes with practice and practice and more practice,” he says. “Everything isn’t exactly like the textbook. Each tree is going to be different.”

And about that power? Well, Apostolos isn’t completely powerless when it comes to tools. He does use a small backhoe during the installation of projects and a chainsaw if he needs to cut down a dead tree.

But when it comes to the pruning, he uses hand tools, because more power doesn’t always mean better results. 

“There’s some real disasters,” he says “that have been done like that.”

The author is an associate editor at Lawn & Landscape. He can be reached at bhorn@gie.net.