Bu Bonnie-Marie Hibbs
For many years I have admired Japanese landscape gardens and, in particular, the beauty of the cherry blossom season. Fortunately, earlier this month I was lucky enough to see the cherry blossoms. Throughout my two weeks of travelling around Japan I saw my fair share of cherry blossoms. After landing in Tokyo and having a good night’s rest I set off on my first official day sight-seeing, visiting two gardens.
One of the gardens I happened to stumble across when making my way to the station. Curious, I decided to take a look. The name of the garden is ‘Kyu-Shiba-Rikyu’. The design and layout of the garden is what you would title as a ‘Stroll garden.’ There is a central lake which the rest of the garden is focused around. Rock and land formations have been styled to mimic and take certain aspects from the natural landscape.
Some many consider the garden to be quite simple, but for such a ‘simple’ garden there is a surprising amount of history behind it. The land that the gardens are currently flourishing on today was once a part of Tokyo bay; it was in 1655-1658 that this land was reclaimed and the gardens were constructed on. Unfortunately, Kyu-Shiba-Rikyu garden suffered significant damage on September 1st, 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake struck. Most of the trees that were once flourishing were reduced to ash from the fires that broke out. Amazingly, in April of 1924, one year later, the gardens were re-opened to the public and completely restored.
‘Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens’ was the next garden that I visited. It was quite overwhelming the amount of people there to celebrate the start of the cherry blossom season. Thousands of people had picnics laid out under the shadows of the cherry trees. Hundreds of people were taking photographs and some simply enjoying a pleasant day out strolling around the gardens. The amount of cherry blossom petals that were falling made it look like the ground was covered in snow it was beautiful.
I have made a small list of just some of the plants that were featured in this garden.
Unfortunately, not all of these plant varieties are available in nurseries around Australia but there are lots of great alternatives these days.
- Chaenomeles speciosa (Flowering quince)
- Prunus serrulata var. serrulata
- Malus halliana (Hall crabapple)
- Prunus lannesiana cv. Hisakura
- Rhododendron ponticum
- Prunus lannesiana cv. Sekiyama
- Prunus campanulata
- Prunus cv. Grandiflora
- Prunus pendula cv. Pendula
- Prunus cv. Albo-rosea
- Prunus speciosa(Oshima zakura/cherry)
- Prunus x yedoensis cv. Yedoensis
- Prunus lannesiana (Carr.) Wilson
- Prunus x subhirtella cv. Subhirtella
- Prunus x kanzakura cv. Kanzakura,
- Prunus campanulata
- Prunus x kanzakura ‘Rubescens’
- Prunus jamasakura Sied. ex Koidz,
- Prunus ‘Youkouzakura’ (Sunlight/
Sunshine Cherry) - Magnolia liliiflora (white form)
- Narcissus pseudonarcissus (wild daffodil, lent lily)
- Cornus florida (Flowering Dogwood)
- Davidia involucrate (Dove tree)
Please come down to the nursery and have a chat. We have a great range of ornamental trees available in the bare root season, which will start the second week of June.