At the close of 2025 we began a new chapter in our stewardship of Elk Rock Garden by partnering with ISA Board Certified Master Arborist Rick Till to assess the health of our trees and develop a plan for addressing deferred maintenance. This spring, that partnership blossomed into two memorable events that brought together some of the region’s finest arboricultural talent.
Arborists at Elk Rock Garden — March 21, 2025
On a sunny Saturday morning in March, an enthusiastic group of arborists arrived at Elk Rock Garden at 7:30 am to join our staff and interns for coffee, snacks, and a brief introduction to the property’s history and vision for the future. Then we got to work!
The day’s tasks were wide-ranging. Seven Oregon white oaks had dead wood removed from large branches hanging over walking paths. Arborists also inspected cables in four of those oaks, and searched high and low for any signs of Mediterranean Oak Borer (MOB), a precaution with particular urgency for our garden. (Last summer, Elk Rock Garden partnered with the West Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District to serve as a MOB monitoring site for 14 weeks. In the final week of monitoring, a single MOB was discovered in one of our traps, thus vigilance is essential.)
Additional projects included end-weight reduction on a deodar cedar, deadwood removal from a large Douglas fir, and a variety of smaller projects across the garden.
After a busy and productive morning, we celebrated a job well done with a pizza party on our patio. Our hope is to make this a recurring event.
A Pruning Workshop with Masa Mizuno — March 28, 2025
Exactly one week after the Arborists at Elk Rock Garden event, Rick Till returned to the garden with landscape contractor Masa Mizuno to lead a pruning workshop for practicing arborists seeking continuing education credits.
Masa has worked in the Portland area since the early 1980s, including four years as a garden technician at the Portland Japanese Garden. He is widely known for his work designing and maintaining Pacific Northwest gardens that draw on Japanese garden traditions — and for his thoughtful philosophy of pruning. Inspired by authentic Japanese gardens, Masa believes that plants should be pruned to allow them to inhabit their space comfortably, and that gardeners must remain open to relocating or removing plants that are no longer thriving where placed. Central to his teaching philosophy is the importance of maintaining the right ratio of open space, so that each plant can assume balanced proportions in relation to the landscape around it.
At Elk Rock Garden, Masa demonstrated his techniques on rhododendrons, azaleas, small conifers, and a Japanese maple — giving attendees both practical skills and a deeper framework for thinking about the living landscape.
Many thanks to Rick Till and Masa Mizuno for making both of these events possible, and to the talented professionals who generously donated their time and expertise to improve the health of our trees, including: Andy Boyer, Charlie Boyer, Andy Teel, Eric Campbell, Miranda Williams, Cash Cuddington, Christian Cerri,John Buttrell, Kevin Hillery, Blake Thomas, Brett Cassidy, Jackson Chandler, Jon Brown, Karen Tillou,Travis Cooke, Will Koomjian, Lars Limburge, Van Bogner, Mason Purdy, Travis Cooke, Elena Lauterbach, Garett van der Spek and Brian Hart.
And an extra special thank you to our board secretary Nancy Truszkowski for providing pizza!