Category: Our Garden

The garden, these days

Our Christmas roses made seeds, our rhododendron has almost finished flowering. These days, the Naniwa rose has been coming into bloom bit by bit. Originally this flower’s blooming period is short – one week to ten days – and it has not been very warm this season, so it didn’t bloom all at once this year. (Surely it has few enough buds to bloom all at once!?)

We failed in the winter trimming. (The timing was a little late… and the trimming was too much.) Indeed the buds are not many as usual years. Well, if it had too many buds, it would probably get a fungus disease.

I noticed when I looked at last year’s pictures that the jasmine should be in bloom this season. Indeed the buds have already become chubby, and it looks like it will bloom very soon. Is the air temperature lower than it was last year?

We bought this Jasmine the year we moved to Japan (2000) and had the pot in the front yard for a couple of years. When we bought the pot, it was already in bloom, so it had flowers the first year. However, after that, it didn’t grow at all, and didn’t bloom at all. It’s a very simple thing to say, but sunshine is very important for most plants! It has been some years since we transferred it to the back yard on the east side of the house, and the stem became thick, it grows well, and the number of flowers increased even if we trim it a lot. Please bloom soon. So I think, but I also think that I don’t mind a small jasmine, and I might get a headache if there are a huge number of jasmine flowers. (I always think so when I pass a house about ten minutes away from our house that has a huge jasmine bush with a lot of flowers.) In addition, it doesn’t look nice after the flowers are finished.

By the way, the Naniwa rose doesn’t have a fragrance, unless you get sociable with it.

There is no wisteria in our garden but they have been in bloom near our house. It’s a nice day: we’d like to take a walk and check on how the wisteria trellis at Minami Park is doing. (When we visited there last Sunday, it was ten or twenty percent in bloom – we thought it had already finished when we first saw it. Because it is in a shady place, or perhaps it’s late flowering?)

On the way to Minami Park, the azalea is in full bloom! ( We don’t want to have it at our house, but to see it blooming along another person’s hedge is cheerful and nice.)

–YS, 25 April 2006

25 April 2006