Mini gerber makes loud cheer

もう一つ、植物の室内撮影。このミニガーベラはとても派手ですね。たくさん化学肥料を使っているからかもしれません。ホームセンターにはそんな植物が多いです。短い茎は異常で、このピンクと白色のガーベラは人工的です。人工的に育てられた花と手作りの陶芸を組み合わせるのはかっこいいと思います。

More indoor plant portrait photography.

I love how this short stemmed pink-and-white gerber is so loud. It seems super-charged with fertilizers, which seems likely since I bought it at Shimachu, a “DIY” home center in Nakano. I like the prices and the proximity, although I consider many of their plants more on the human side of the nature continuum.

In winter, it seems like some of the filler and seasonal color I bought there is lasting a long time. And I think there’s a perverse balance in combining factory-produced plants with hand-made ceramic.

Fantasy landscape with fountain, palm, and odd characters

A miniature fantasy landscape freely shared on a Tokyo curbside.

ミニチュアのファンタジー風景が舗道 の縁石を占領している。

This tiny curbside garden is a fantasy landscape in miniature in what was probably dead space previously between the house and the road. There’s moving water, a palm tree, plants, and several odd characters. I found it just across the road from the giant tree on that former country lane that is now barely visible in Suginami, not far from Opera City.

The contents are fun in their whimsical incongruity. Even in this tiny space, there are several overlapping vignettes. A tiny palm tree joined by a sliver bunny and a character that appears to be a cross between European Romanticism and anime; several Sago palms (Cycas revoluta) beneath some mid-height bushes; and the fountain with water plants and a character trio with a helmeted princess, a red Cobra super-hero whose left arm is a semi-automatic weapon, and an over-sized yellow dog. The fountain features plants, a tiny cliff-side, and bathtub ducks.

The garden structure is very DIY: low-cost, anonymously designed, and highly imaginative. I love that the gardener is sharing this creation with the neighbors and passers-by. The garden’s minimal foundation is constructed mostly of  low-lying brick with some wood fencing. I particularly like the tag that shows the flowers that will bloom later.

Thanks again to @ArchitourTokyo for the great bike tour where we discovered this sculpture garden.

My Japanese TV debut on Plants+ Club Live

Plants+ という番組に参加しました。初めてのテレビ出演！　UStreamで見れます。ルークさん、せいこさん、しんごさん、Plant+のみなさん、ありがとうございます！

My first live Japanese television program, on Plants+ Club Live on Ustream. Thanks Luke, Seiko, Shingo & everyone!

Lucas from Knee High Media (makers of Paper Sky and Mammoth magazines and the Plants+ website) invited me to their monthly Plants+ Club Live which is Ustreamed. In Japanese broadcast tradition, I was one member of a large panel of eight, including hosts Ito Seiko and Yagyu Shingo.

I can’t seem to embed the video on this blog. You can see the 30 minute show online at http://www.plantsplus.jp/video/plants-club-live-vol-14

This is the 14th episode, and I was impressed by it being simultaneously DIY and very well organized. A quick stage was set up, two professional photographers set up camera, lighting, and computers. And there were at least ten more people “backstage.” Lucas introduced the youngest blogger on the Plants+ network, who is a 7 year old in Kobe.

I struggled a bit with the live and conversational quality of the show in Japanese, but I did my best to introduce Tokyo Green Space. The hosts were super-animated, and we shared on-air some persimmons from the publisher’s back yard in Shibuya.

Other guests included the founder of Green Sticks, which makes seed strips in the shape of match boxes, writer and photographer Ashikara Yoko, and talented mandolin player Inoue Taro.