How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden (Part 3)

What is to be done when you have thanked all the donors? Thank them again, of course.

Part 3 of an 8-part series on building a mitate mono Japanese garden.

Read Part 1 of How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden.

Read Part 2 of How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden.

In the last part, I talked about all the plants and items I secured for the garden.

Over the last week, this has made me think about one lady who has helped so much. She gave me some grasses early in the summer, beautiful blood-red ones and several other types. She also said, when I went by to collect them, that she had a Camellia and many irises I could have. She said she would be in touch in the autumn when it was a good time to move them. She was in touch, in the autumn. She had been busy. What she had done was carefully photograph the irises when in bloom. Then she had matched up the tubers and bagged them by colour. So here was a gift that was promised in April, carefully remembered in June, dug up in September, and delivered to me a couple of weeks ago. Of course, major gifts have the power to transform. It’s rare, however, that they have the same level of commitment or personal effort as this lady has shown. She, like all the others, deserves generous thanks.

So what has been my stewardship? Well, the first thing I did was say thank you when people promised me something. And I was very careful to keep in regular touch before I collected it. I had a system with everyone on collection day. Message to say I was leaving. Message when an hour away. And when ten minutes. I thought this was the least I could do to make people feel respected.

When I arrived, I thanked them again. Sometimes I took someone with me to dig up a plant. I made sure they knew that the item was a gift and to behave accordingly. I made sure no one spread mud everywhere and that afterwards any mess was tidied up. Particular care was taken with other plants. For example, a couple gave me two huge rhododendrons. Through one was growing a clematis montana. It went all the way up the tree behind. As soon as I saw it, work was stopped and a discussion took place. I was not willing to go further without warning the donor that there was a high chance the clematis would be destroyed. Of course, I also reassured them that we would be doing all we could to avoid that. Great care was taken and it was disentangled. It will now be even more beautiful with a bit more space.

I also ensured everybody knew I would stay in touch, let them know how their plant was doing or what we had done with their materials.

Sometimes the process of moving items went on for weeks. One couple gave me a load of huge rocks, mahonia, buxus, clematis, aucuba and much more. My gardener works a few days each month, so this was an extended job. I made sure their garden didn’t look like a recreation of the Somme in the meantime.

The eponymous Whale is at the left back. The size of the stones on the crates gives a sense of the challenge

I mentioned last week I set up a Facebook group for the garden called The Welsh Marches Japanese Garden – Where the Whale Talks to the Stars. I asked everyone involved to join, and I made sure that anyone could join, so their friends and neighbours could join too (anyone reading this is welcome too – ping me a message). Quite often neighbours were fascinated to see huge rocks and trees being dug up. More than once, they turned up with things from their garden. A lady seeing the work at one place arrived with a two- or three-hundred-year-old tombstone!

Eventually, I built this website. On it, I made a donor wall. I realised at this point I should have kept a proper list. And I also realised that, in many cases, I had handles, not names. In other cases, I had only a first name. And often it was a couple, but I only knew one of their names. There was a lot of messaging, and I eventually got it together.

It is often tiny things that pop up and present odd problems. A reasonable number of people asked to be listed by first name only. Often, I knew the surname, and I considered listing them where their surname fell in the alphabet. But then I thought that maybe they didn’t really want people to have a hint of who they were and, in a community like ours (a mighty Welsh town of 2,700 people), it wouldn’t take much working out. I considered putting them all at the top. Or all at the bottom. Either would have looked odd and would have sent some sort of unintended message. So, I just dotted them through the list. Of course, every entry needed permission and checking.

A few of the donors on the stewardship page

All this may seem a lot of fuss over a list. I spent so long in fundraising that I knew that it takes years to build a relationship and seconds to screw it. I wanted these people to be happy and I didn’t mind the effort.

What I also did was ensure that the local Facebook groups had regular postings. This is a tremendous way to thank people. When you thank someone personally, people can sometimes think you are just being polite. When they read thanks for their efforts being reported to others, they know you meant it.

So, what are my plans to continue this engagement and, besides being nice, why is ongoing stewardship so important? There are many reasons.

The most important is that these people made the garden possible. For tiny effort, I can make them feel appreciated and involved, and the fact that makes them happy makes the effort on my part trivial.

I am also determined that, although the pagoda is to be my studio, it and the garden will provide public benefit. I said last week I intend to do a couple of open days a year to raise money for the air ambulance. In September, HArt organises over 100 studio openings. There are a number of artists and ceramists in the area who are in dialogue with Japanese aesthetics, so I am planning to use the pagoda for an exhibition during that time. Hergest Croft Gardens has two fantastic plant fairs each year, and they are five minutes’ walk away, so there may be opportunities to do something on those days too. I feel I have something special and, though it’s OK for me to enjoy it privately, to write and make images there and to think, I should share it sometimes too. We are stewards of everything in our lives. This is too special a place for others to not have the experience.

That’s why it is so important to keep in touch with all the donors and supporters. They will bring people to the events. They will come and buy items from artists. They will spread the word. It’s hard to find people who will speak well of you, not for benefit, but because they simply like you and like what you have done. I will do my best to justify their faith in me.

So what next for my stewardship? Identifying stones, identifying rocks and making a catalogue are the next stewardship tasks, oh yes, and labelling.

A Chilean Lantern Tree that came from Ebbw Vale to make way for a drive. Whilst not a plant of Asia, they are often used in Japanese gardens as they really look the part.

My cousin’s husband is a retired geologist. I have given him the task of identifying the many rocks and their origin. Someone asked me one day if all the rocks are second-hand. I understood what they meant. But the gritstone from Gore Quarry is Pre-Cambrian. That is pre the great explosion of life on earth. So it is, probably, second-hand! I believe that the garden will, in its rocks, trace the entire history of the Earth.

We have so many plants too. And many are unusual. For example, a huge range of bamboo from plants that grow only inches high to giant bamboo 5m tall. They all need identifying. And when I label them, with the donor’s permission, I will name the donor. And then everyone who comes will see how this place was built with love.

Having mentioned bamboo, that reminds me, I had better go looking for some more oil drums. We need them so we can bury a stout enough barrier to contain 5m-high bamboo. More of my search next week, when I will be talking about best-laid plans and what happens when they hit the reality of mud and rock.

Thanks for reading!

This is Part IV of the story of building Where the Whale Talks to the Stars, a Japanese-inspired garden made mostly from found plants, rocks, and hubris.

Read Part 4 of How to Build a Mitate-mono (transformative upcycling) Japanese Garden now.