東京のベランダで、バナナの木は熱帯の雰囲気を作り出します。狭い庭なのに、ニュージーランドやいろいろな太平洋の国からの植物があります。
On our Tokyo balcony, late summer clouds, Edo-style morning glory, New Zealand flax, and a banana tree are a mix of Pacific Ocean geographies.
この手袋はオーナを見つけたでしょうか。歩道のもう一つの使い方です。他の国では、落とし物こんな風に見せる習慣はあまり見られません。
It’s quite common to see that lost items are placed prominently at eye level, in case neighbors return to look for something that fell off a bike, stroller, or handbag. I’ve benefited myself from this system of retrieval and display. It’s a little late for gloves this year, but I hope they find their guardian.
From last year, I like these images of the balcony garden in late fall, still crowded and with leaves turning color, the previous year’s purple salvia re-bloom, and new pink gerber daisies as highlights.
表参道で、ケヤキの紅葉が金色にきらきらしています。今年は紅葉がちょっと遅いです。最近、気温が下がって、今がピークです。もうすぐ終わります。今週、ケヤキやモモジやイチョウの紅葉を見てください。
On a recent wet night, Omotesando’s Zelkova leaves cast a golden glow on the sidewalk. It seems that fall leaves are late this year in Tokyo, but with a sudden drop in temperature the trees are now putting on a show. Like cherry blossom viewing, it’s an ephemeral sight. Check on the street trees this week!
突然、ベランダのミントに紫色の花がたくさん咲きました。午後遅くの日光に、葉は金と赤い色になります。秋の瞬間です。
My mint is suddenly full of purple flowers. And in the late afternoon sunlight, the leaves turn gold and red. It’s a fall moment.
I love having herbs on my city balcony: for cooking, for scent, and for variety. Mint is ridiculously easy to grow, and I hope the seeds travel and plant themselves somewhere nearby.
どんな理由があっても、新宿御苑を通り抜けるのが大好きです。植物と景色が多いです。モミジが池に映っていて、人のいない自然みたい。竹で作られた柵があるから、人が作った場所だと分かりますが。近くに日本庭園があります。園芸家のおかげで、様式化されています。両方の景色が好きだから、一緒に見るのはすばらしです。
With any excuse, I like to cut across Shinjuku Gyoen. There are so many different plants and landscapes to see there. I like the contrast of these photos. Above late summer maple trees are lush green, and reflected in a pond. Only the wooden edge suggests that it is a garden and not a natural wonder. Below is the Japanese garden, with a path through the pond and gardeners hard at work styling nature into a very specific shape. I love seeing both woody and stylized versions so close to each other.
最近は季節が変わってきたと感じます。空気は乾燥してきたし、空はもっと青色ですし、ふわふわな雲が劇的に動きます。晩夏、うちの狭いベランダ庭では、野生の気分が出てきました。小さいな保育園の席やブルーベリーや陶芸の植木鉢があります。
The season is turning. The air is suddenly much drier, the sky bluer, and the clouds puffy and dramatic. These late summer photos show the wildness I was able to achieve in my narrow balcony garden this year.
Above is the view from the kitchen door. There’s a tiny nursery school chair, an already fading sunflower, a last burst of blueberries, and murasaki shikibu, a fall flower that I just bought.
Below you can see the shelf full of my amateur ceramic flowerpots, which can also be seen from the living room. One pot has basil. I like how the garden path seems longer and more over-grown than it is.
There’s something utilitarian and magnificent about this row of hundreds of commuter bikes lined up outside JR Tokyo’s Ryogoku station on a hot summer afternoon. The sun bakes in this concrete canyon, and even the salary men are wearing short sleeves.
晩夏のベランダの庭は混沌としています。いろいろな多年草と一年生植物、花と野菜でいっぱいです。夏草と常緑草で出来ているグリーンカーテンで、アパートの中を涼しくしています。この長くて狭いバルコニーのスペースにはエアコンと洗濯機と物干しロープもあります。
The balcony garden in late summer is chaotic. A variety of perennials and annuals, flowers and vegetables, seasonal and year-round plants form a green curtain that provides some shade and cooling for the apartment. The long and narrow space also includes the air conditioner, washing machine, and clothes line.
この吉祥寺の神社の木陰と静けさはとても良い雰囲気です。武蔵野八幡宮という神社は大きくて、木がたくさんあります。神社の前は五日市街道という古い道路です。この道路は新宿と西の街をつなげます。百年前、武蔵野や中野は農園だけでした。
I love this large shrine and wooded grounds in Kichijoji. Towards the end of a summer afternoon, the shadows and quiet are very inviting. The shrine is called Musashino Hachimangu (武蔵野八幡宮), and it’s on an old street that connects Shinjuku with the (now) inner western suburbs called Itsukaichi Kaido (五日市街道). A hundred years ago, Musashino and Nakano were farms, and you can see the kanji for “field” in both of these town names.
友達が作った素敵な景色盆栽は秋を表現しています。それぞれの要素は色々な違う場所から来ています。
My friend’s stylish bonsai composition expresses autumn with elements from distant geographies.
My friend Matthew Puntigam created this bonsai composition last week. It’s a wonderful expression of late autumn: the red berries, sparse leaves, and asymmetry of the plant, and the intriguing composition that creates a fantasy landscape with elements from distant geographies.
The plant is, possibly, called ピラカンサス (pirakansasu) in Japanese, or Pyracanthas in Latin. I like how Matt, a bonsai apprentice, has paired the plant with a stone from Sadoshima (佐渡島), an island in Japan or Korean Sea, depending on your perspective, that served as a penal colony and place of forced exile since the eighth century. The diminutive turtle is of unknown provenance, but the slate is an old roof tile from Matt’s Maryland hometown.
Thank you for the gorgeous image!
Tokyo Green Space 