Time seems to fly by. With 2003 just around the corner, major housework operations are in order to enter the year with everything sparkling. Garden companies, too, will be busy cleaning up gardens. Pruning pine trees and cutting hedges, known as hagari (lit. "leaf-cutting") ...
Autumn chilly spell yields a spectacular cast of colors
This year, the autumn color has been truly magnificent in the Kansai region, primarily thanks to the Japanese maple. Every year, these trees are almost guaranteed to deliver wonderful yellow-and-red fall foliage, but this year the sudden drop in temperature in the first few ...
Autumn in Japan is a colorful season, and not only because of the famed koyo foliage of its trees. In gardens, fields and roadsides, too, flowers burst forth as if to celebrate the return of sensible weather after the long, sweaty rigors of summer. ...
Nurturing nature in an urban sprawl
At a mere 374 meters high, Arima-Fuji in Hyogo Prefecture is hardly on a par with the Kanto peak whose name it shares, but its conical shape does bear a passing resemblance. Though it's almost all clothed with pleasent woodland, from the bare rocky ...
Trees that tower over the past and present
An visitor to Kyoto's world-famous gardens and temples could not fail to be awed by the stands and avenues of towering Kitayama sugi (Japanese red cedar, or peacock pine; Cryptomeria japonica). A native of China and Japan, this member of the Taxodiaceae (or Taxodium) family ...
In praise of grass, glorious grass
Summer's heat is lingering on, but there are hints in the air that the glorious days of autumn are just around the corner. Fall in Japan is exciting for its famed tree foliage, but the weather is also perfect for gardening -- or for ...
Blooms to brighten summer's days -- and nights
Japan's floral symbol of summer, the asagao (morning glory; Ipomoea purpurea) is an interesting climber with beautiful blooms that has been cultivated on these islands for more than 1,000 years since being brought from China during the Nara Period (710-784). Before that, its origins ...
A wetland wonderland way out west
In Tessei town in western Okayama, there is a wetland called Koi-ga-kubo Shitsugen whose range of rare and interesting flora makes even the difficulty of getting there well worthwhile. Located in the Chugoku mountain chain that runs through western Honshu, the area is now home ...
Expense no object at Meiji jewel in Kobe's crown
Though it's neither very large nor very old, Sorakuen Garden in Kobe is one of the best-designed pond-strolling gardens (kaiyushiki-sensui-teien) I know, with many interesting features and plants of exceptionally high quality. The main entrance to the 2-hectare garden is a superb wooden gate modeled ...
In 1972, two years after the Japan International Exposition in Osaka, redevelopment work began on the site. The result, eight years later, was the 260-hectare Expolands Green Oasis, which has now matured into a wonderful parkland with a wide range of attractions and facilities. While ...
A temple, park and Heian pond in one
Daikakuji Temple in northwest Kyoto started life in the lyrical Heian Period as Saga-in, the Detached Palace of Emperor Saga, who reigned from 809 until he abdicated and went to live there permanently in 823. Then in 876, his daughter Princess Shoshi designated Saga-in ...
Water, water irises everywhere
For those who live in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, tsuyu officially began last week. Although in some years little or no rain falls in this rainy season, I personally always hope the heavens open to give some respite from the relentless heat. Two plants to ...
