Sorry-ology

  I wish to be the Jizo, 地蔵, the guardian deity, sheltered in blossoms. 

Obituary for Venetia A few days ago, a news came to me, Venetia Stanley-Smith passed away in 2023. I saw the picture of her in silver hair accompanied by her husband in the news and was really shocked at how much time has passed since then, and how many things have changed since the time when I got to know her as a life artist in the media.  Neither have I really sat to watch TV for almost 10 years, nor have I had time to attend to the garden for an equal amount of time after the birth of my elder child. When my partner and I moved to the current house nearly 15 years ago, I was enthusiastic about herbs. I devoted much time to planting all sorts of herbs. The garden was the focal point of my attention. Venetia Stanley-Smith, a British herbalist married with a Japanese, was very popular for her TV show, At Home in Kyoto . In the program, she showed the seasonal tasks that she would do with the herbs she’d grown in her garden, which surrounded her traditional farmer’s house. Ve...

Hydrangeas ease the weight of the wet season.

The roses have been in bloom since 2 days ago.

Finally after almost 3 years since it was introduced to the garden, our hydrangea is going to bloom this year. It has been a anxiety-making process since the first flower buds were discovered beneath folded leaves in early May. I started to look for information regarding the ways in which to ensure its blossoms. Many days were spent worrying about slight signs of invasion of insects; many more days were wasted on wondering if my home-concocted insecticide would damage those flourishing mopheads. In the end, despite all my concerns, they seem all managed to emerge from their leafy cradles and get ready for their time: the rainy season. Our hydrangea is supposed to yield flowers of the colour of lazurite. However, given that the colour of hydrangea is determined by the pH of soil, and that it has been 3 years since its arrival, I do not know what shade I should expect this year. No discrimination against other colours though. Yet, I still think the colour of lazurite gives a myst...

Quietly lavenders have also joined the ensemble in the garden. They smell wonderfully sweet as everybody knows. The shade of lavender looks best in early dawn, when the air is still moist and somehow grey. Strong sun beam easily discolours their soft tone and disables camera to see it. Update on 8 June, 2014 It has been pouring since the day before yesterday when the rainy season officially kicked off. Many of the lavenders have been bent by the heavy rain. I rescued some of them to be displayed in a newly-adopted flower vase.

The front yard Distant Drums and California Poppies Compliments from passers-by these days really flattered my vanity. I have heard that parents who helplessly admire their own babies for no reason are considered foolish. I guess, along with this logic, I would be a foolishly infatuated gardener. Poppies and Roses are blooming at their peak despite the howling wind of printemp in Japan. Corn Poppies  This is the first corn poppy in the yard. There is a long story about the ways in which I simply uprooted all of its sprouts imagining that they would be invasive weeds. Thanks to my poor vision though, some have survived my destructive hands, and now it is blooming like beautiful a red saucer. The Blue Moon Voluminous, gently coloured and fragrant are the Blue Moon. I sometimes wonder how I would count roses, since that the blossoms are as big as one's palm. Perhaps, a head of rose?

Here is a collection of roses this year. In general, they are doing pretty well compared with last year. Royal sunset and distant drums have probably adapted themselves to their new home well enough to produce very healthy-looking flowers. While the distant drum is shorter in build, the royal sunset winds its way to the top of a spire that is fixed on the ground.  Royal Sunset Distant Drums Our blue moon is an old friend in the garden. It has never failed to amaze us over the past three years; however, after its first blossom last week, the following flowers, though abundant in quantity, look smaller in size. I was unable to cut back one main stem of the blue moon last winter, and now, despite that it still manages to pride itself on carrying more than a handful of buds, it seems to be too tall to balance the bush. The Blue Moon

Our garden has been blooming all the way since March after a frosty February. Exciting! I have unknowingly developed this strange anxiety about posting photos of flowers on fb, worrying that I would be bombarding others with my personal hobby. In the end, photos of, for instance, babies are definitely more inviting and exciting. Therefore, for the time being, I would grow my private interest here instead. I sometimes felt funny that when the public side of the self gets too much publicized, there is a tendency in me to privatize it. In a Christmas party last year, a neighbour said that he always saw me in the garden. I understood that he meant no harm; however, it is difficult for me to take it as a compliment, given that most adult females in this neighbourhood are young mothers preoccupied with their toddlers. I have been feeling a certain degree of pressure on childless couple, who have had too much time to spend on plants. (I do believe, however, I would never abandon th...

This is an overdue entry regarding an exhibition on the art of gardening in Edo-period Tokyo last year (July 2013): Flowers in Bloom: the Culture of Gardening in Edo .  It is not a theme popular among young people in Japan, and the relatively young Edo-Tokyo Museum hasn't claimed its importance on the map of tourism of Tokyo. I was then blessed with a quiet morning in leisure with my Korean friend at the exhibition.  The exhibition showed the ways in which gardening and the passion for plants were a fashion in Tokyo during the Edo period. It was part of the Samurai culture to love and grow plants, and later on the zeal reached out to the general public.  Unfortunately now I cannot recall much about the exhibition in details. Below are some images that I really love.  歌川貞秀 亜墨利加之商人小樹之桜を求めて大に歓喜之図 This is a portrait of an American merchant who is said to be overjoyed with his new acquisition of a cherry tree. The image of the lady on top left was pr...

These days I love waking up around 5 or 6 in the morning to tend the garden before the sun is in full sight. It was a very private moment of the day for me, a block of time before neighbours get out to work, before birds start to tweet, before bugs wake up, before much traffic begins to flow, and before everyday routine resumes. The garden is in full shade around this time, bright but elegantly grey in tone. Given that I do not need to dodge burning sun beams, I am able to feel the garden in a more intimate way. It smells fresh, feels cool, and sounds quiet. Colours are even brighter. Every second is endearing to me. My garden was never productive in summer in the past due to irresistible heat and ever-proliferating bugs, but this year I sowed some zinnia and portulaca grandiflora with a very humble expectation that they would eventually flourish. Surprisingly they have taken over the entire space of the front patch with their bright blossoms at different heights. They are b...

I still am not very sure if I love lavender. In my impression, they are too popularly loved that it becomes difficult to appreciate their beauty. However, for my herbs project in the garden, I planted some lavender in the garden 2 years ago, After a long wait, now here they are, blooming and airing natural aroma. They are lovely adornments, and their quiet scent soothes whoever approaches them. One regret is probably that I should have dedicated a larger space to them. It is difficult to understand their humble beauty in these two small bundles. 

The good weather of spring continues to encourage blossoms in May.  Now the central stage of the garden is given to three types of roses.  At the corner of the garden is a climbing rose with a beautiful name: the blue moon. It has been staying with us since the first year when we moved in. Their gigantic blossoms and impressive volume have attracted much attention in the neighbourhood. I do heart them as they are the first-born of my gardening project.  The blue moon is commanding an unmissable presence in the garden. However, I have a feeling that they are not doing as well as last year, or as I have expected. Perhaps I did not make enough efforts to care for them last winter; or perhaps it rained immediately after they started blooming, and the rain somehow burned the edges of its silky petals. The shape of the entire shrub is far from ideal, too. As I did trimmed it down harshly in the past 2 winters, it is not supposed to grow too vigorously either h...

Spring is indeed the prime time of everything exciting, le printemps.  The tulips in the garden did very well in April. Cups of solid colours waved in their small circles in the garden. They would have lasted much longer if it had not been for an overwhelmingly windy day on which I harvested an armful of them and secured them in the house. They served as wonderful companions indoors especially when the last bit of wintry chill still lingered around. With the heater on, they would bloom as wide as the size of a palm; however, such artificial warmth had stretched these darling creatures too much that their lives were unfortunately shortened.  As a gardener, I guess I am not mentally strong enough to bear the thoughts that it is in the end more than natural for plants to sprout, to grow, to bloom, to wither and to die out in its natural surroundings.  Tulips in April, 2013 Since the first year we moved into the house, one of my keen anticipation for the gard...

This is the second year for us to grow evening glory as part of the green shade for the house in summer. The seeds were collected from last year's glory . They made a beautiful start in April but have been since coping with the strange weather this year. It survived two strong typhoons and my week-long absence in August and waited long enough to bloom finally on comfortable autumnal nights.  The blossoms are gorgeous as ever, but I wonder if anyone in the neighbourhood has ever noticed their quiet presence. In contrast with morning glory which blooms at the first beam of sunlight, these white flowers are certainly shy of daylight and attention. Probably this reticence makes them a real philosopher in the world of flowers, a word that denotes a show-off of efforts and demand on gaze. 

I did not learn to appreciate the taste of perilla, or shiso, until I came to Japan. In my childhood, my grandmother would add shiso to homemade pickled plums, I remember, and those wrinkled leaves having soaked up plum juice were merely amazing. However, it was probably more to do with my passion for the thick sugary liquid rather than the herb itself, and embarrassingly I had remained quite ignorant about its usage in cooking.   In Japan, shiso can be tempura-ed (deep-fried), consumed raw with raw fish or rice balls. Fresh shiso is not cheap. 5 shiso leaves would cost roughly about 100 yen, 30 NTD, 79 pence, or 1 USD.  Given my fascination with its fresh and minty taste, the herb was invited to live in my garden. This summer, we had a nice shrub of shiso, despite that almost half of the harvest was nibbled away by gourmet caterpillars.  In addition to other experiments I did with the harvest, I also made shiso paste, which is simply a fine blend with extr...