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)
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
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
Going through a dusty 2003 hard drive I find this fantastic example of PET bottle-on-bottle planters at a gardening exhibition in Nagoya.
The top image features PVA glue planters. The middle image shows how to create flat floral wreath from 2L PET bottles and sturdy wire. The last image features upright 2L planters, with the fine touch of a bottle-in-bottle construction to store the watering can for the planter-sculpture. I think the cut-away bottle hanging from the bottom is a scoop for soil and fertilizer.
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening)
Quick notes from memory-infused morning glories
Mr. Kushimoto in Shibuya gives us an early morning lesson in memory-infused gardening (see Personal Impact of Urban Green Space) en-route to breakfast at Knee High Media Japan.
His very ordinary plot of asagao (Morning Glory) links him to his Noh teacher who received the seeds as a gift but had no space to grow them in his tiny apartment and passed them on to Kushimoto. This Noh teacher lives next-door, in an apartment building that was once part of the Kushimoto family estate (now broken up into quarters, and soon to be fragmented further – see e.g. Schematic of scattered land ownership over time in a typical Japanese village).
Mr. Kushimoto used to have a garden that spanned the front of his home, but when his brother turned his inheritance into an income-producing parking lot dirt became scarce – the compromise being the deep concrete planter leading up to the entrance to Kushimoto’s property. This planter proved a more productive spot than the shallow and junky infill soil of the original plot (see last photo).
Now, Mr. Kushimoto lives on the 1st floor of his two-storey house (son and family on 2nd floor) and limits his gardening to decorative asagao, irises and roses – he informs us he has no need for home-grown vegetables because he never learned to cook and his wife passed away a couple of years ago (her name is, however, forever etched on the mailbox plate).
The asagao blooms in the morning, withers by afternoon and goes to seed soon after (a process very lovingly described by Kushimoto) (see second to last photo). I love the mix of intergenerational property metamorphosis, spousal memorial, ongoing teacher-student friendship and loyalty, long-term attention to soil quality and daily change brought out in this simple early morning encounter.
(Originally posted on Tokyo-DIY-Gardening.org)
While walking down from a 5th floor office on Aoyama Dori in Shibuya I had a low key and voyeuristic chance encounter with three dedicated rooftop gardeners and their lush creations. I didn’t notice it at the time, but the first gardener is joined by his grandchild – slow hobbies foster gentle intergenerational interaction and knowledge transfer.
Tokyo is surprisingly green, even from up high.
I’ll be posting more videos of Tokyo gardening above eye-level over the coming weeks.
Location: Shibuya, Tokyo
Lower level balcony garden blends in with planted grounds.
Location: Setagaya, Tokyo.
This example is a note for a pamphlet on “Hand Made Aspects of Mass Produced Housing”. Subscribe to my somewhat-frequent letter HERE if you want to keep in touch easily.
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)
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
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
