We have a garden on our property, which is hard to call a ‘garden’ because it’s so small. Our neighbours – on all three sides – have built very close to our land; so we can expect sunlight from the east in the morning, and a little from the south and west in the evening. The entrance area faces south, and it’s covered by concrete, so we put some flower pots there. The front garden is small but there are some trees there and they make shade. Anyway, I shouldn’t complain too much, because we are actually living here. We shouldn’t expect too much or envy other people who have great places. Even the evening sunlight from the west helps things to grow and warms the wintertime plants. We might not be able to grow the vegetables or fruits we expected to grow in Japan; but we still have hope: to look for plants suitable for shady places. We adjusted our ideas, and have been trying things out day by day. Of course, our situation is still far from our ideal garden, but we sometimes see nice flowers in a garden which used to be covered by a ton of sand.

–YS, Summer 2003

Date posted: 2004-08-10