Laundry poles resting on a makeshift wooden frame on the ground floor of an old apartment complex just off the high-fashion street of Omotesando provide support for a hanging garden construction of twisted clothes hangers and simple potplants.
Materials: Laundry Pole, Clothes Hangers
Location: Just off Omotesando, Shibuya
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening.org)
PET plastic bottles form vegetable plots in West Tokyo.
It’s interesting to see a material that usually acts as a pest deterrent incorporated into the construction of the garden.
Materials: PET Bottles, Metal Straps
Location: Kokubunji, Tokyo
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening.org)
Bouquets in milk cartons, on sale for 100 yen on the side of the Tamagawa Josui walkway in West Tokyo. Relaxed, honesty-box style informal florist makes a delightful addition to an afternoon stroll.
Materials: Milk Carton
Location: Kokubunji, Tokyo
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Judging from the bottles concreted into the ends of the breeze block planters, these trees have been here for decades.
They seem to have adapted their growth to the cramped residence while becoming large enough to provide a modicom of privacy and shade. Fresh pruning evidences ongoing care and attention.
I’m impressed that large plants could be grown in such an unforgiving, soil-less environment.
Materials: Breeze Blocks, Bottles
Location: Minami-ku, Nagoya
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening.org)
A line of bricks provides just enough space to add color to a bleak footpath.
Signs of life.
Materials: Brick
Location: Minami-ku, Nagoya
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Curbside tiered garden constructed on a base of two step benches, secured with breeze blocks and wire.
While making delightful use of the only outdoor space on the cramped corner plot (molded right to the edge), this garden guides visitors to the desired approach to the front door and presumably cuts down on hit-and-run pamphlet deliveries.
Materials: Step Bench, Wire, Breeze Blocks
Location: Nagoya
Disintegrating polystyrene planters provide a colourful point of integration between the residence, plot and street.
Flexible, tiered, lithe.
Materials: Polystyrene boxes
Location: Nagoya
This raised empty plot supports a host of edibles, in a garden constructed from pots, old metal shelving, rags, netting and all kinds of junk.
Location: Nagoya, Japan
This circular planter in front of an apartment complex is constructed of traditional Japanese roofing tiles.
Light on the ground and easily dismantled yet with more presence and permanence than the usual plastic planter box.
I love the reuse of traditional housing materials in the grounds of one of the symbols of Japanese homogenous mass-produced housing. I wonder if the tiles came from a house that originally occupied the land (and if the owner now resides in one of the apartments).
Materials: Roof Tiles
Location: Nagoya
Quiet gardens nestle up against apartment complex walls and fences, far from the controls of the centre – in planters and planted directly in the earth.
These side spaces, edges – passage territories – are just the right mix of light, elbow room and ‘half-hiddenness’ to act as invitations to garden.
(see The Open City by Richard Sennett (PDF link) for a discussion of passage territories)
Materials: Pots
Location: Nagoya
This rambling garden along a strech of 4-lane residential road illustrates the blurred, conjunctive nature of Tokyo gardening (although this example is from Nagoya).
Pots, blocks, dirt and plants sit, stand on and burrow over and into each1 other in a rich semi-autonomous mess. Compare this to the modular, constrained and connected formal gardens and green spaces of the financial district.
1. from Shelton (1999)
Materials: Pots
Location: Nagoya
Frugal hanging garden constructed from three types of wire and a metal ring that was once used to secured a roll-up canvas awning.
Simple, robust, flexible.
Materials: Wire, Metal Ring
Location: Nagoya
Ramshackle arrangement of pots mark the entrance to this shuttered store and workshop.
Location: Nagoya
Materials: Potplants
Dead space unsuable for parking or commerce is just big enough for a family size harvest of onions.
Materials: Brick Border
Location: Nagoya
Plants trump cars (or rather, genially share space with them) in this family-feeding size parking lot planter.
See also Pots Trump Cars in Kokubunji on this site – and blocking plants and 4 ways to use parking space from the fantastic Linus Yng.
Materials: Bricks, Metal Stakes, Metal Shelving
Location: Akishima-shi, Tokyo
Long roadside planter constructed of loosely packed bricks also functions as parking deterrent on residential street.
Materials: Bricks
Location: Akishima-shi, Tokyo
Man-made green adds functionality (all weather use) and safety (non-slip?) to a patch of less-desirable real grass (courtesy of Tokyo-based designer Edith Prakoso)
Materials: Astroturf
Location: Nogizaka, Tokyo
Hanging garden on residential entrance stairs (courtesy of Tokyo-based designer Edith Prakoso)
Material: Stair Railing
Location: Itabashi-Kuyakushomae, Tokyo
A lovely planter in a tight spot (courtesy of Tokyo-based designer Edith Prakoso)
Location: Nogizaka, Tokyo
Two tiered gardens constructed from plastic planting shelves and old computer desk. Plot made of breeze blocks and plastic planks.
Materials: Breeze Blocks, Shelves, Computer Desk, Planters
Location: Akishima-shi, Tokyo
Marble strips support and allow drainage for pot plant decoration outside of local clinic.
Materials: Marble
Location: Akishima-shi, Tokyo
Oranges secured with wire to metal ashtrays act as effective and colourful birdfeeders – adding life, scent and song to suburban Tokyo.
Materials: Ashtray, Wire, Plastic Pole
Location: Akishima-shi, Tokyo
Trees decorating the entrance are stabilised with plastic twine and string
Materials: Plastic Twine, String
Location: Minato-ku, Tokyo
