While I was walking down a street in central Tokyo, I came across a tree pruner working on trees along the pavement.

An extended pruning arm reached branches high up on a camphor tree, and the branches came down, rustling.

The arborist moved from one finished tree to another, pruning the branches aggressively until they were sparse enough to count without effort.

The modest green growths at the tips of the branches made me wonder if they would grow dense enough by summer to shade us from the sun.

In “Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees,” American arborist William Bryant........

© The Asahi Shimbun