How An Old Japanese Maple Was Moved To New Spot At Kubota Garden

SEATTLE, WA - How do you move a decades-old Japanese maple tree to a new location? Delicately, and preferably with help from someone who knows his trees.

On Wednesday, Kubota Garden moved an approximately 50-year-old Japanese maple from deep inside the park to a new, more prominent spot at the corner of Renton Avenue and 55th Avenue South. The move was made possible by Al Kubota, the grandson of Fujitaro Kubota, who founded Kubota Garden as a nursery in the 1920s.

Al Kubota owns a local landscaping company and donated his labor, equipment, and expertise to the project. Workers dug around the tree's root system, freeing it from the soil. Then a forklift lifted the tree out of the ground and - slowly - drove it out of the garden, up Renton Avenue, and on to its new home.

Joy Okazaki, president of the Kubota Foundation board of directors, watched the head-turning operation on Wednesday afternoon.

"There were a lot of gawkers," she laughed.

The Japanese maple will adorn a new wall installed at the garden's northeast corner. The yellowish, stucco wall filled a gap between the laurel trees that surround the property, but cried out for some landscaping. The Japanese maple had been donated to the garden years ago, Okazaki said, and wasn't really in a prominent location. Now it is.

"We wanted to find ways to bring out some significant plants, feature them, and give people a preview of what waits inside the garden," she said.

And what's inside the 20-acre Seattle city park is stunning. Visitors can see trees of all shapes and sizes, and a landscape dotted with stone benches, waterfalls, sculptures, and hidden bridges. Rare spruce trees tower over ornate shrubs and gravelly pathways. In autumn, the garden explodes in color.

The move had to wait until the maple went dormant for winter. Landscapers were able to gather the tree's entire root ball, assuring the tree would survive the move in good health.

In fact, Wednesday's move was less worrying than the people the tree's twisty limbs might attract.

"The biggest risk for the tree in that location is people climbing on it," Okazaki said.

Kubota Garden
9817 55th Ave. S, Seattle
Open daily 6 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Kubota Foundation Website

Photos by Neal McNamara/Patch, Kubota Garden Foundation