I happened on Kenrokuen the week they rig it for winter. Yukitsuri is the system: ropes strung in a cone from a central pole down to the branches, so the pines can carry the wet Hokuriku snow without tearing themselves apart. The garden does this every autumn, by hand, tree by tree.
The first frame is the low-tech version of the same idea, a heavy limb simply propped on a bound wooden post. The second is the real work: a man up a long ladder paying out the ropes from the top of the pole while the crew steadies things below. They were not performing for anyone; it was just the job.
By the time I came back round, the pair of cones near the pond were finished and standing against the dusk, which is the version most people photograph. I took that one too, but the ladder is the one I went for. Base ISO for the finished cones, up to 3200 for the crew in the shade.