Michael has been inspired for 25 years living in his Maplewood home.  He has always been fascinated with the Japanese culture and temple gardens.  He has created  a rare and very specialized garden.  He loves weird & unusual trees and has a great variety.  He said his garden improved with age.   One can quickly see the bonsai nature of his tree specimens and no doubt this garden took time to be what it is today – beautiful.

Michael wanted to try sculpting and found rocks locally along the road or wherever he saw an interesting piece of stone.  He sculpted heads in his garage and then placed them on a stone pedestal in several areas of the garden.

His garden is divided up between his front and back yard with specimen trees that he sculpted and pruned to fit into his Japanese theme of Bonsai.  Look for the Red Pine, Japanese Maple, Umbrella Pine, an Arizona Cypress, and  Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar.

Michael’s garden is truly magical, so creative and unique. He loved finding placements for his rock sculptures and pruning to be the most fun. 

All photographs were taken by Joy Yagid (www.joyyagid.com).