Category: Urban Essays

The winter flower garden

Sunday, 10 February.
We worried about the weather, but it was a happy sunny day, and we visited the flower garden at Hakozaki Shrine. (We got free tickets!)

We hadn’t heard about it, but there was a flea market held by (maybe) professional people along the approach to the shrine. Mostly there were old tools, furniture, ceramics, and kimono.

After paying our respects to the shrine’s deity, we went to the flower garden.
The main flowers were the winter paeonies, and we think it was the best season. In this season, when there are not many flowers around, the winter paeonies are covered by individual straw roofs: there are less of them compared to the spring paeonies, but they are gorgeous. (I guess they are very hard to raise!)

And the Chaenomeles speciosa flowers are also pretty. The Prunus mume are also almost in full bloom. I don’t know what the difference is between their Bellis perennis and ours, but theirs are a few times bigger than ours!

It’s nice to see flowers on a sunny winter day!

I am sure I used to like more unusual exotic flowers though… Did my taste change a little?

– YS, 12 February 2008

12 February 2008