Yesterday, I decided to plant some colorful flowers at 555 to welcome visitors and workers. There were some old plant pots sitting around the space and the other day Sakaguchi-san rescued an old concrete pipe that he suggested as a plant stand. With those materials and access to as much dirt as I could want, I bought a variety of pansies, violas, and other winter annuals and foliage at Komeri.
Buying the pansies, I was reminded of my mother’s Story of the Red Rug. I adored pansies when I was a toddler. I loved the garden where she planted them and never came inside willingly. When Mom carried me in at sunset, kicking and crying, I would run to the living room and bang my forehead on the floor, making a clockwise trip all the way around the red area rug. Every time I came inside, I did this. She took me to a doctor to see if anything was wrong with me. He said I’d outgrow it.
Fifty years later, pansies still cheer me and I always feel a little disappointed when I come indoors. Nothing much has changed, but I did outgrow the frustrated head banging.
With yesterdays pansies and violas, I tried to make a pretty arrangement of heights and colors in the old pots and in the ground.
This is my first addition to the gardens at 555. There are so many established plantings already that I have been a bit overwhelmed. Tea camellias, fruit trees, ashitaba, suisen, flowering ginger, ferns, tree of heaven, and so many unwanted vines and bamboo stems.
I have many plans. I want to try a scented herb garden out by the kitchen. I want to plant ornamental shrubs in Tire Town (or is it Tireyama). I will attempt a vegetable garden, though I have been told monkeys will likely decimate it. I guess we will see.
This is all one great experiment and it starts with pansies.
