New Year’s Day in Tokyo, and there’s a bright blue sky and view of Mount Fuji from the balcony. The southern exposure and high floor make it feel balmy during mid-day. You can see in the full photo below that I have planted winter kale, lavender, hibiscus, geranium, and something that looks like salvia but [...]
Posts Tagged ‘balcony’
21 Dec
Winter flowers in balcony garden
Reading about this weekend’s winter snowstorm in the US mid-Atlantic, I realize how mild and wonderful Tokyo winters are. December is the season for camellias, and the balcony garden also has pansies, fairy white daisies, cyclamen, geranium, decorative cabbage, one last morning glory flower, and a maple bonsai just turning red now.
Below you can see [...]
10 Nov
Balcony garden in early November
With cooler nights, fall is definitely upon us. I took these photos in the first week of November to document the passing of the seasons on our balcony garden. Above a dramatic sunset over Mt Fuji illuminates the very end of the morning glory green curtain. As you can see in the photo below, there [...]
11 Oct
Typhoon damage to balcony garden
Typhoon #18 last week knocked down our twine trellis. It’s a good thing that our friend warned us to prepare the garden for the gusty wind: bringing some plants inside, and placing others on the balcony floor closest to the building. We easily rehung the Okinawa morning glory, and I was amazed that this late-in-the-season [...]
10 Oct
5bai Midori plants arrive during typhoon
Thursday 5bai Midori delivered the three “satoyama units” I ordered, two for my home and one for Shiho, the pottery studio I attend in Suginami. I was amazed that the delivery service was uninterrupted by Typhoon #18 (known as Melor outside Japan), the first typhoon to hit Japan’s mainland in two years.
5bai Midori’s native plants [...]
29 Sep
Okinawa morning glory
On our balcony, this Okinawa morning glory is just now flowering. All but one of the four Japanese morning glories have died back. The Okinawa morning glory is a vivid “crystal blue,” whereas the Japanese ones are variegated. The Okinawa flowers and leaves are larger, growth vigorous, and best of all the tag claims it [...]
10 Aug
Vancouver’s Olympic vegetable gardens
In 2006, the Vancouver City Council created a challenge to add 2,010 vegetable gardens before the 2010 Winter Olympics. As of the end of June, they had reached 1,800 new food-producing gardens, only 210 gardens from their end of year goal. Working with the Vancouver Food Policy Council, the city government urges new gardens to [...]
1 Aug
Balcony green curtain
Inspired by the Suginami Ward Office’s giant green curtain, we have started a green curtain for our south-facing balcony using bitter melon and morning glory. Above you can see the first vegetable taking shape. Below a wine-colored morning glory; other colors include white, blue and white, pink and white, and “crystal blue” from Okinawa.
With twine, [...]
22 May
5bai Midori, or 5 sided green
In an earlier post, I talked a little about 5bai Midori’s street beautification products and the creative force behind this small green business Tase Michio. This post uses photos from their website to explore their idea of restoring the countryside, or satoyama(里山), and bringing it into the city.
The photos above illustrate the concept of carving [...]
16 Apr
Wisteria in apartment balcony
Leaving the JR Harajuko station on the way to a meeting with a green new media activist, I looked up at a concrete residential tower and saw this splendid wisteria flower explosion ten floors off the grounds. Many of the balconies have no plants, or just an odd plant or two. What amazes me about [...]
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