Marin man keeps the Tea Garden growing
Mill Valley man keeps S.F.'s Japanese Tea Garden growing
When Steven Pitsenbarger goes to work amid the greenery and beauty of San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden as its garden supervisor, he often takes a trip down memory lane.
It’s where his single mother frequently brought him and his five siblings during their childhood in San Francisco, back when the garden was always free. It’s a place whose history he’s tirelessly researched for many years, and lectured about at conferences and workshops across the country. It’s also home to a grove of cryptomeria trees — one of his favorite spots to go to in the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States.
The Mill Valley resident, who studied ornamental horticulture at City College of San Francisco, started as a gardener at the Japanese Tea Garden in 2007. Pitsenbarger also serves on the board of the North American Japanese Garden Association.
Q How’d you get into this field?
A I was working at an office job and I started to feel like I was losing touch with myself and the world, being trapped in this fluorescent-lit cubicle. I distinctly remember watching a tree crew work outside the window one day and thinking about how I wanted to be outside. I quit without a real plan. I saved up some money so I didn’t have to work awhile, and spent about three months at home working on my own garden. That was my therapy. I should have known then that gardening was the thing I should get into. I ended up starting my own business, painting houses for 10 years. I got to a point with that where again, I wasn’t feeling gratified by the work I was doing. I thought of the things I wanted to do, what would I be happiest doing, and gardening was one of those things.
Q What do you love about Japanese gardens? A I had interned at the Conservatory of Flowers when I was going to school and started thinking, maybe this is a place I would want to end up. But after being at the Japanese Tea Garden for a couple weeks, I thought I found my spot. There is something about a Japanese garden that just clicks with my brain. At its core, Japanese gardening is a conduit between people and nature, and I have always been drawn to nature. Q What was it like when the garden shutdown at the beginning of the pandemic? A On the one hand, it was fantastic to be in the garden all by yourself and I was able to do things that I can’t do in the garden normally when it’s full of people. But, having the garden empty, there was a sadness there. All this beauty was happening and people didn’t get to experience it. It also gave me a little bit of perspective because our world has been turned a little bit on its head. So much of our lives had changed, but when you look at the garden, it’s like the world is still going, spring is still happening, flowers are still blooming. The world doesn’t stop just because of us.
Q Why was learning the garden’s history important to you?
A
Often when you are coming to an older garden, what you try to do is ascertain the design’s intent. In our garden, that’s difficult because there have been so many hands on the design over the years. But I wanted to be informed not just about Japanese gardens in general, but about our garden so that when it came to a decision — do I take this tree out, do I move this stone — I want to make educated decisions. I ended up going down all these rabbit holes to try to put together a complete story of how the garden got to be where it is today. I’m in the process of writing a book on the garden, both because there’re many fascinating stories with the garden, but also that the information out there is based on myth, family stories and a lot of exaggerations, and sometimes just fabrication that have been accepted as common knowledge.
Q Do you spend much time gardening at home?
A I have a garden in Mill Valley but can’t say I spend much time in it. It’s fairly simple. It’s hard to work in the garden all day and then garden at night when I come back. With managing the garden, playing and writing music, taking care of two dogs, there’s plenty of things to keep busy with.