FUMIO UEDA Japanese Gardeners

10/01/2026

WE ARE BACK IN ACTION BABY! If you haven't locked in your summer tree tickling, give us a buzz asap (limited spots left now). 2026. YEAR OF THE HORSE! LET'S RIDE!! 🐎

A wild start to the year for our folks in Victoria... Just last winter, we went to restore some epic Wisterias near where the fires are raging... Bloody terrible stuff. Hoping that the rain clouds come your way as soon as possible 🤲

13/08/2025

Botanic Gardens - Live demo & lecture by Shinya - Wrangling a Wisteria Arbor (Thursday 21 August - event link in bio)

I've been working with the Adelaide Botanic Gardens in Sounth Australia - restoring their mega wisteria arbor. What should you do if your vine has become a Kraken?! Or how can you prevent that from happening to your young wisteria?
Also I'll take you through this restoration project & process - transforming this hot mess into a elegant creature. So far I've done one of the two 60m arbours, so this is a rare opportunity to see the before/after process side by side.

(event link in bio):
WISTERIA ARBOUR PRUNING DEMONSTRATION WITH SHINYA UEDA
https://events.humanitix.com/wisteria-arbour-shinya-ueda

PUBLIC SESSIONS:
Date: Thursday 21 August 2025
Time: 11:30am - 12:30pm or 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Location: Wisteria Arbour, Adelaide Botanic Garden
Tickets: Free registration (enter $0), donations welcome!


All funds collected from ticketed parking are used to support conservation, education and horticulture at the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium.
Closest entrance is via the Friends' Gate or Conservatory Gate, accessed via Plane Tree Drive
Drone footage of Adelaide Botanic Garden provided by and copyright from Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium.

Special thanks to BG team: Mark Oborn, Rebecca Dugmore, Alison Archbald, Lori Leane, Leonie Scriven, BG hort staff: Tom Burke, Dan, Kirrily, Chaminda, Tyler, UEDA team: Leuwin Andrews, Tristan Wnoroski

21/09/2024

PLANETS BY SHINYA

this zen garden was the first of my "planets" series. 

The architect graciously allowed me to modify the window.  We shrunk it into a frameless yukimi-style (雪見窓). From inside, it doesn't even look like the glass there 🙌 The view pulls you downwards to calm your energy and bring focus for meditation.

Something to meditate about are these black granite boulders. Found in the overburden of the Black Hill quarry. These shapes have formed naturally through spheroidal weathering. This rock is believed to be from the Cambrian period making it around 500 million years old! 🤯

For this garden, these 'planets' are used to tell the TanaBata folklore (七夕). A love story of a princess (Virgo constellation) and a farm boy (Aquila constellation) falling for each other, only to be separated the Milky way (天の川 : Heaven's River). 

A Japanese Podocarpus (Buddha pine) is planted on one corner, and Brachychiton rupestris (QLD bottle tree) on the other. Separated by the boulders, they grow towards each other with 'hope' to tell the tale...

I love these rocks...

EVENT: open garden 10am-2pm Sunday 22 Sept 2024 (Live calligraphy performance at 12pm)

31/08/2024

12/04/2023

HIRING! looking for samurai warrior that will go hard (but delicate😁)! Adelaide region winter pruning Jun1~Aug31. Minimum 3days/week requirement. Work and learn with master Gardeners. Pine trees, one hundred wisterias, and everything in between. We get sweaty, we get wet, we get dirty, we work till it gets dark. First come first serve. Please DM me direct👍 Shinya

11/03/2023

28/01/2023

Road trip with my teenage daughter (part4) final. Hung out, conspired about landscaping and spent the night at David & Robynne's new pad in Ballarat. . Last time En & I hung out with them was at his River Rocks house in Tasmania.
I like seeing landscape projects by architects. Often more conceptually interesting than landscapers 🤣.
You can read about River Rocks here
https://www.architecture.com.au/awards/2022-awards/entrant-gallery-tasmanian-chapter-2022/river-rocks
建築家のデービッドと新しい住まいの庭造りを陰謀…　去年はタスマニアにあるこの雑貨の家にみんなで遊びに行った。建築家が考案する庭は面白い！

28/01/2023

08/10/2022

Boys trip outback! Drove 3days to get to a natural Onsen in the middle of the desert! (Dalhousie Hot Spring). AMAZING spot...
Eaten alive by a million mozzies, almost got bogged twice on the muddy parts of Oodnadatta track, fields of pink Calandrinia wild flowers, salt lakes, sore but cheaks, epic country.
オーストラリアのど真ん中。砂漠に潜む温泉を求め、息子と3日ドライブ。夕方について早速はいった温泉は38~40度☺️！何百万年かけて湧き上がる大地の恵み。
途中、砂漠といえども通り雨でグジャグジャになる道もあり、2かい泥に引っかかりそうだった!　タイヤも一個パンク😬。
赤い砂、囁くワイドフラワー、異世界な塩湖、あとはひたすらネバーエンドなアウトバック。素晴らしい大自然。

21/08/2022

Plum! Winter is Ending! Vivid-pink, Pale-plum, or Green-white. Which one's your favourite?
耐雪梅花麗 Yuki Ni Taete BaiKa Uruwashii
Enduring the Snow, the Plum flowers Beautifully - Saigo Takamori

13/08/2022

Trees at night with my favourite people. Tomorrow (Sunday) is last night. Go check.

31/07/2022

Just got back from Sydney working with Bonsai artist Hugh Grant. About this time last year we worked together on this project for Christopher Esber at Sydney Fashion week. Was so much fun. Catching up with Hugh again brought back memories!

Vogue page here
https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/christopher-esbers-moment-of-reflection-for-resort-2022/news-story/6ee35baaca4262da656416214fcdef89