Very interesting book. A very focused topic that probably is niche for most readers but it was an enjoyable read as someone who loves gardening and the way that it is treated as a unique art and profession in Japan.

This is a book that informs and inspires. It's well written and enlightening. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Not a gardening enthusiast, my interest in this book was sparked because Leslie Buck is a local author. Despite my lack of knowledge, I found her fish-out-of-water tale interesting and inspiring.

As a keen gardener I am always eager to read of how gardening is approached around the world, so this book grabbed my interest as it's the story of Leslie Buck who moves from America to Japan for 3 seasons to challenge herself and her gardening outlook. And it is a fascinating insight into her as a person, and how the art of gardening can be so different from one country to another.

In America she has her own tree pruning business and is extremely confident in her skills and totally at home and at ease up a tree! But she feels like she needs more of a challenge and to learn more, so she sets off to Japan who are masters of tree pruning to learn more about the art, and ends up learning a lot about herself in the process!

I loved the contrast of gardening styles and hearing how the Japanese approach gardening and how their approach to working is so different. It isn't always easy and that comes across as she writes but her determination sees her through and I think her fellow Japanese gardeners appreciated her efforts and committment.

Japanese gardens are always so stunning so it was so insightful to learn of how they look at the whole garden, or the whole plant before setting upon pruning or changing something, and it really makes the way you look at your own garden change. I won't be rushing in with secateurs anymore without a bit more thought going into my pruning attempts!!

The only negative thing I have to say about the book is that there were no photographs as I would have loved to have seen some of the impressive gardens she worked on, that were so beautifully described by her. But other than that it was a fascinating and delightful insight into the world of Japanese gardens.

An interesting book about apprenticing in Japan. We Americans are sure wimps compared to Japanese workers. I enjoy inside looks at parts of Japan. This one centered mostly on Ms Buck's work. (An apprentice really doesn't have time to see the sights.) Though the book centers on her job, it does not go into technical detail about pruning. Made me want to track her down to work on my garden. Very readable. One really feels for her. At the same time one can intuit the frustration of her coworkers and mentors as she struggled to learn without really knowing the Japanese language. I was grateful to Workman Publishing and Timber Press for sharing this title with me in exchange for my honest review.

A Naturalist Delight

There is a difference between learning the tricks of the trade and becoming a master artisan. The author devoted over twenty years learning how to prune trees. Cutting Back is specifically about time spent in Japan where its society revers traditional gardeners like Olympic level athletes. She shares her experience through vivid descriptions of the people, places, and a love affair with plants. The passion and care that goes into making each plant shine and thrive within its environment is similar to a spiritual journey. Delightful images, like the one of a pruner snoring in a tree fifteen feet above the ground, are woven throughout. It was interesting how little difference there was in Japanese and American culture when it came to a female working in a male dominated profession. One overriding premise came through loud and clear, gardening is very hard work when done correctly, but the results can be spectacular.

The author is a certified aesthetic pruner and owns her own landscape pruning company in the San Francisco Bay area. She has also worked with the Merritt College Pruning Club and other public institutions including the UC Botanical Garden, Portland Japanese Garden, and Tassajara Zen Center.

I received this book free through Net Galley. Although encouraged as a courtesy to provide feedback to the publisher, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

In Cutting Back, author Leslie Buck chronicles her four-month stay in Kyoto at the turn of the millennium. Unusually, for a woman and a westerner, she was taken on as an apprentice at a big-name Japanese landscape gardening company (Uetoh Zoen).

There is something irresistible about this type of memoir, especially when the writer is trying to lift the veil from some very traditional aspect of Japanese culture. Liza Dalby in Geisha (1983) told the story of her move to Kyoto to train as an apprentice geisha; Kaoru Nonomura in Eat Sleep Sit (1996) described how he left his job as a designer for a year of training at a Zen Buddhist temple. Both books sold well, partly because they offer a glimpse inside cultures that are essentially hidden, but also because as readers we identify so readily with the hapless novice navigating the unknown.

Buck was not really a novice when she arrived: she had run her own landscaping business in California for several years. Yet following Japanese tradition she was automatically junior to the sixteen-year-old apprentice who had joined six months ahead of her. And he, being senior, was at liberty to give her instructions on the job, even though his inexperience meant he was getting things wrong.

Buck is a natural raconteur, and excels in her descriptions of life as the female American employee of a traditional Japanese business. She deftly draws out the humour in her encounters with clients and colleagues, and much of it is self-deprecating, as she herself struggles to meet their exacting standards and keep a grip on her natural exuberance.

Yet she is open about the more difficult aspects of her apprenticeship: the language barrier, the severe winter cold, the strain of being criticised by an unforgiving team leader. The narrative falters slightly when she turns her mind to her boyfriend back in California. The fact that she missed him was part of her story, of course, but so much less interesting than her day to day encounters with the Japanese master gardeners.

There is some discussion of pruning techniques and garden design, but much of this you could find in other sources (Buck references, for instance, Japanese Garden Design by Marc P. Keane). The book is based on the author’s journals and comes across more as a portrait of the people tending to the gardens than the gardens themselves. This means there is plenty to interest the general reader as well as those with a passion for gardening.

I did wonder, though, what happened once she returned to California. Did her Kyoto experience impact her work style or how she ran her business here? How did the boyfriend situation pan out? Overall, a light, warm-hearted read that presents a unique perspective on Japan. Recommended.

Cutting Back
Leslie Buck, 2017.
Timber Press, 280 pages, $24.95 (hardcover).

Cutting Back is available from May 3, 2017. I am grateful to NetGalley and to Timber Press for the chance to review an advance copy of this title.