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Jul 27, 2023

The Samurai of Ballentine

Share This: An ornamental Japanese garden By Kasey Huss Photography by Robert Clark Although Henry Chason has been a landscaper for most of his adult life, he considers himself an artist. He chose his

Share This:

An ornamental Japanese garden

By Kasey Huss

Photography by Robert Clark

Although Henry Chason has been a landscaper for most of his adult life, he considers himself an artist. He chose his profession out of a love for design and a compulsion to create beautiful spaces. After visiting a Japanese garden in Portland more than 40 years ago, Henry was inspired and designed his own personal paradise adjacent to his home in Ballentine. A Japanese garden’s design is inspired by nature, and the gardener’s job is to improve its design continuously. What is omitted is just as important as what is committed to the ground — and Henry has created a masterpiece.

Henry Chason marches in rubber boots down a muddy dirt road. Behind him, Ballentine bustles with bumper-to-bumper traffic lining the lanes of Highway 76 for miles as people attempt to hurry home in vain after a heavy afternoon rain. Such is the world Henry leaves behind as puddles splash and gravel cracks with every footfall farther into the woods.

Eventually, Henry reaches a wire fence — the only object separating the busyness behind him and the bliss beyond him. He carefully pulls back the gate and ducks into paradise. Shrubs and trees rise like clouds up a hill as Asiatic jasmine flows down like a river. Raindrops glisten on green leaves as far as the eye can see while humidity hovers over sparkling streams. Henry has returned to Eden. He is Adam in his garden, and as he looks around, he sees it is very good.

Though the world beyond the wire fence has grown out of Henry’s control over the past 40 years, everything within the confines of his garden is under his careful command. He has patiently pruned all that resides in his paradise and calls each plant by name. He is intimately acquainted with each species, and each serves a unique purpose, just like Henry.

Henry is full of humility and reverence as he sits on a stone bench overlooking his garden. “There wouldn’t be a thing I could do here without God’s creation,” he says. “But I’ve just found out in the past five years that I have a need to create, too. I can’t not create.”

Although Henry has been a landscaper for most of his adult life, he considers himself an artist. He chose his profession out of a love for design and a compulsion to create beautiful spaces. His desire to grow his knowledge in the field led him to visit the Portland Japanese Garden in Oregon, more than 40 years ago. “As a landscaper, I thought I would visit, and maybe I would learn something,” says Henry. But what he didn’t realize was that he would leave Portland with a passion for the practice of Japanese gardening.

After a decade of learning, Henry finally put pen to paper and mapped out a design for his own personal Japanese garden. Next, he enlisted his landscape crew’s help to clear a portion of his property and launch the project of his lifetime. Henry carefully recalls six days of hard work, including clearing land, planting shrubs, and installing irrigation. Finally, on the seventh day, Henry smiles and says, “We rested.”

Japanese gardens serve one primary, profound purpose: enjoyment. Although it may be tempting to perceive these spaces as sacred or seriously meditative, they simply serve as a beautiful backdrop for everyday life — one that meets the basic human need for pleasure. The traditional Japanese garden is primarily created for a family at their private dwelling. These gardens grace homes throughout Japan and are a welcome respite from the homeowners’ busy, hard-working lives. It was just the kind of retreat Henry needed in his hectic life too.

In the West, gardens are for strolling. But in Japan, stroll gardens are rare. Instead, a Japanese garden is for sitting and viewing from inside one’s home, much like observing a painting on a wall. Gardens are situated so they can be viewed from a seated position through large, floor-to-ceiling windows. The elevation of a Japanese garden is significant as well. Like Henry’s hill garden, the plane should slope upward away from the home so that all its elements can be equally viewed and enjoyed.

The garden’s design is inspired by nature, and the gardener’s job is to improve its design continuously. Shrubs should be carefully sheared into dome-style, or tamamono, shapes. Others can be planted and grouped in massed hedges trimmed into a waved, or okarikomi, style if they are of the same color and variety. Shrubs and trees require, at the least, annual attention. They should be carefully inspected and pruned, if necessary, sometimes three to four times a year.

In a Japanese garden, what is omitted is just as important as what is committed to the ground. Every garden should have some open space with moss or another ground cover to keep the design from feeling crowded. Plants that do not maintain a pleasant appearance year-round are never incorporated.

The gardeners should carefully select stones with a flat surface for retaining soil, edging ponds or streams, or accenting shrubs. They should also ensure stepping stones are balanced and partially buried instead of placed on top of the earth. Pathways typically follow a zigzag pattern with the largest rocks on either end. And although precision is important, perfection is never the purpose. Leaves or petals falling to the ground are just as ornamental and enjoyable as carefully placed plants or stones.

Many of these design rules date back to the 11th century Sakuteiki — Japan’s oldest published text on gardening. The traditions observed in Japanese gardening have been carefully passed down for generations. But as Henry proves, you don’t need to be native to Japan to appreciate the practice. Anyone can grow to enjoy this timeless tradition.

Henry gladly shares his knowledge with anyone interested in Japanese gardening. “I’m the Samurai of Ballentine,” he says with a smile. He often enjoys entertaining groups and individuals who come to experience his piece of paradise. Henry’s tour starts at the foot of the hill garden. “The idea is that the little plants are in the front. Then the middle-sized plants are halfway up, and the taller plants are in the back so they don’t block each other,” says Henry. This careful design allows visitors to enjoy each element from the stone bench at the bottom of the hill.

As Henry climbs the hill, he approaches a tamamono-shaped boxwood. He pulls back the foliage to reveal a carefully pruned interior. “God is most concerned about what we look like on the inside. So, if you look, you’ll notice I’ve cleared out all the dead branches from here,” says Henry. “No more branches have died since I did that because the light can get all the way through to the inside.” The metaphor is clear to Henry. Not only does he enjoy sharing his best gardening tips with guests, but he also loves passing on the lessons the garden teaches him about life. “God always prunes us for a purpose,” says Henry. “He is in control all of the time.”

Henry seamlessly shifts from the providential to the practical and continues to share his best pruning advice as he advances up the hill. “I do most of the tree pruning in June,” he says. If pruned earlier, Henry advises that new growth will appear before the end of summer and will need tending again. He has carefully pruned his pines to follow a zigzag pattern instead of stretching straight up to the sky. The pine is the only tree in the garden pruned against nature. “It’s important to prune every branch in every tree,” says Henry, “so your tallest tree shouldn’t be any taller than your tallest ladder.” His favorite tool in the garden is a faithful tripod ladder.

At the top of the garden, jasmine pools along the ground and flows down the hill like a river. Henry wanted to install a sand garden but knew it would easily wash away. He recommends jasmine as a clever substitute. He trims the vine to reflect the likeness of water, like raked lines in the sand.

Henry estimates that he spends at least one full day a week laboring in his garden. He usually works alone, but sometimes he is accompanied by his wife, Becky. She picks up pine cones, points out the branches that need pruning, and keeps Henry company as he does his meticulous work. He admits that he is slower than he used to be and sometimes trips over roots that run along the ground. Henry knows the sun is slowly setting on his time tending the garden and is unsure of what will come of his paradise after he is gone. But he experiences immense satisfaction knowing that he has stewarded his garden well, obeyed God’s first command to subdue the earth, and found joy in his Japanese garden. Henry says that if the garden stops with him, it has fulfilled its purpose by bringing him tremendous enjoyment.

The shadows of the maples and pines stretch long across the mossy ground as the sun takes its place behind the trees. Henry rises from his stone bench for one last walk through the garden in the cool of the day. As he turns toward the long dirt road home, he holds a steady gaze as he carries the peace of Eden within him.

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