Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2006

The Japanese are often accused of being faddish in their interests and tastes, a criticism no one appears to object to. But the latest craze to sweep the country, the gardening boom, is one environmentally sound trend that few would find fault with, and many—including the publishing industry, which has brought out dozens of new gardening, flower and horticulture magazines—benefit from. Flower shops, herb centers and nurseries have sprung up to add color and vigor to otherwise drab shopping streets. Planters have appeared outside apartments, and window boxes bedizened with flowers and shrubs are giving suburban Tokyo a vivid makeover. Every month some flora and foliage suddenly appear, signaling the start of a new season with its own shade, element and flowers. If you know what to look for, you can predict the change of season better than the weatherman, let the riot of color brighten your day, and enliven your cocktail conversation with your horticultural acumen.
 

New leaves of an almost transparent beauty are a sign of spring, as are sweet daphne, yellow kerria, violet, rape plants, early varieties of April iris, and cherry blossoms. The cherry, more than any other flower, has come to symbolize that very Japanese feeling known as mono no aware: an exquisite but melancholic awareness of the impermanence of life. The cherry that infatuated old Japan was the yama-zakura, found growing on the craggy slopes of relatively soil-poor hills. Though yama-zakura are still much appreciated, these days you are more likely to see the ubiquitous somei-yoshino, a blossom cultivated in Tokyo in the 19th century.

You may also come across clusters of wild shunran (spring orchids), wild rose, chigoyuri (fairy bells) and daffodils. The delicate flowers of the Chinese milk vetch, a species introduced to Japan from mainland Asia during the Muromachi Period (1333-1568), is another reminder of spring.

As plum, cherry and peach blossoms vanish, look out for flowering bushes. The most extensively planted and used in Tokyo is, arguably, the azalea, a flower that comes in red, purple and white. The effect of great, bunched groupings of flowers against the new spring green of a bush can be very impressive, especially when used as street borders or piled up in curving banks and hillocks. There are many azalea festivals in the Tokyo region, the best known perhaps held at the Nezu Shrine, where there are hundreds of bushes. The festival runs from April 10 through May 5. The mid to latter days are usually the best.

The first inklings of the Tokyo summer are felt with the blossoming of the wisteria, rainy season irises and hydrangea; the vibrant blue and purple Japanese bellflower and the fragrant gardenia follow. Other flowers encountered in this season are peonies, China aster, clematis, the yellow linden, Japanese meadowsweet, hollyhock, fragrant lilies of many different varieties, the vivid pink of the crepe myrtle, great trumpet flowers, morning glory and the water lily.

The iris is closely associated with early summer rainy season. Although quite well-known to the Japanese, few foreigners are aware of the existence of the Horikiri Shobuen, where iris cultivation began in the swampy, riverside land of east Tokyo during the 1660s. The formal garden beside the Sumida River, a ten-minute walk from Horikiri Shobuen station in Katsushika Ward, dates from the 19th century.

The lotus, though, is the perfect summer flower, the prince of this sweltering season. Pleasing to the eye, with roots and pods that are edible, it is also a symbol of esoteric Buddhism. Identified with the deity Kannon, the lotus bud came to symbolize salvation for the faithful. In the lotus pond of the Pure Land, the broad, pulpy leaves serve as seats for Amitabha Buddha and other divinities. Fresh lotus flowers were once placed on family altars during the summer O-bon festival, welcoming the spirits of the ancestors back to Earth, a time of year when it is still possible to see Buddha statues adorned with golden lotuses.

Dawn is the best time to view the flowers, when they have just opened and when the intense heat of late morning is still mild and formless. Akira Kurosawa, in his book Something Like An Autobiography, wrote that he’d heard “when lotus flowers bloom they make a wonderful, clear bursting sound,” and wanted to see for himself. “One morning I got up very early and trekked to Shinobazu Pond in Ueno to listen to the lotuses open,” he wrote. “And in the dim mists of morning I heard that sound.” Follow in Kurosawa’s footsteps in the early morning and you, too, may have that pleasure.

The brilliant reds of the maple signal the onset of autumn in both mountain and city gardens. Sweet osmanthus, also known as fragrant olive, red spider lilies, the sasanqua camellia and the chrysanthemum are other elements of this season. Hagi (bush clover) is one of the classical seven flowers of autumn. Blooming in September, its small flowers clustered in racemes have a special appeal. Hagi is often included in formal gardens to give them a rustic, natural touch—a good example being the clover trellis at the Edo-period Hyakka-en garden in Tokyo’s Higashi-Mukojima district. The other flowers that make up the classic seven for autumn are the kikyo (balloon flower), fujibakama (Japanese boneset), ominaeshi (patrina), nadeshiko (fringed pink flower), kudzu, and the susuki (miscanthus), all represented at the Hyakka-en.

In many respects, the chrysanthemum is Japan’s premier flower, at least in autumn, when this highly esteemed bloom, which symbolizes a quieter, more mature and contemplative season, comes into its own. Early November is, perhaps, the best month to appreciate this flower. At this time, gardens, parks and temple grounds become venues for Kiku Matsuri (Chrysanthemum Festivals). Among the tables of chrysanthemum bonsai, representations of miniature temples, traditional toys and boats, are kiku-ningyo, life-sized dolls representing court ladies and historic figures attired in kimono, all carefully fashioned out of the blossoms.

One of the finest places to view chrysanthemums is at Tokyo’s old Imperial park, Shinjuku Gyoen, where stalls and bamboo pavilions decorated with red and white cloth and purple banners create a brocade effect from a distance, with display tiers and vertical beds of flowers trained over an almost invisible frame of supportive wire. Chrysanthemum cascades, planted months in advance and rising to heights of almost 2m, are cultivated by attaching the new stems of potted plants to a wire arrangement.

As the Chinese sages wrapped themselves in their quilted robes with the advent of winter, the yang forces, still strong in late autumn, would begin to fade, making way for the softer, more pliable yin forces. Just as the scholars believed that winter was a time for quiet pleasures, contemplation and study, this is the most introspective season for Japanese flora, but winter gardens are rarely completely bereft of color. There are evergreens, broad-leaf plants, and even the occasional bloom. This is the season for the glossy red berries of the senryo, a shrub whose name means “a thousand gold pieces.” Senryo are often planted just inside the garden gate, to welcome New Year’s guests. (Red has always been considered a lucky color in Asia.) Another hardy evergreen shrub, jinchoge (sweet daphne), releases an enchanting fragrance into the air in late February. The scent that perhaps best embodies winter is the witch hazel, which, on a crisp morning, can act as a stimulant tingeing the air.

At the end of this season, plum blossoms, known to the Japanese as hatsu-hana (the first flowers of the year), make a welcome appearance. The plum tree represents the transition from winter to spring, a quality much celebrated in woodblock prints, hanging scrolls and screen paintings. The transformation is extraordinary: “From one hoary blackened branch,” as landscape gardener Mark P. Keane has observed, “a vivid symbol of agedness, springs a multitude of delicate blossoms, the picture of youth.” The Ikegami Plum Garden in Ota Ward is one of the finest places to view the blossoms in Tokyo. Soon to follow, bringing another riotous year of color, are the cherry blossoms.