The flowers and gardens of Japan

by Florence Du Cane

Siebold, who visited Japan and wrote the Flora Japonica upwards of sixty years ago, thus describes the dwarf trees:—

The Japanese have an incredible fondness for dwarf trees, and with reference to this the cultivation of the Ume, or Plum, is one of the most general and lucrative employments of the country. Such plants are increased by in-arching, and by this means specimens are obtained which have the peculiar habit of the Weeping Willow. A nurseryman offered me for sale in 1826 a plant in flower which was scarcely three inches high; this chef d’œuvre of gardening was grown in a little lacquered box of three tiers, similar to those filled with drugs which the Japanese carry in their belts; in the upper tier was this Ume, in the second row a little Spruce Fir, and at the lowest a Bamboo scarcely an inch and a half high.

The Japanese still love their dwarf trees as much as they did in the days of Siebold, and the trade in them has received additional impetus of late years, as great numbers are exported annually to Europe and the United States, where I fear they are not treasured as works of art, but are only regarded as curiosities.

At different seasons of the year the nursery gardens will be gay with the display of some especial flower. Early in May the gaudy-coloured curtains and paper lanterns at the gates will announce, in the bold black lettering which is one of the chief ornaments of the country, that a special exhibition of azaleas is being held. It is scarcely conceivable that any plants can bear so many blossoms as do these stiff and prim little azalea-trees; the individual blooms are small, but their serried ranks form one dense even mass, flat as a table, for no straggling branches are allowed in these perfectly grown plants. Every shade is there, an incredible blaze of colour, all the plants the same shape, all practically the same size, and all in the same shaped pots; the only variety being in the delicate hue of the faience pots or the vivid colouring of the blossoms. The pots are arranged in rows or stages under the blue and white checked roofing, which seems peculiarly to belong to flower exhibitions; the effect cannot be said to be artistic, but there is something very attractive about the little trees, which are visited by the same crowd of sight-seers, who seem to spend their days in “flower-viewing” and quiet feasting on the matted benches, the latter being inseparable from these flower resorts.

Other flower exhibitions will follow in their turn—great flaunting pæonies, brought with loving care from the gardens near Osaka; and then the last and most treasured flower of all, the chrysanthemum. Again the little matted or chess-board roof will be brought into requisition, and an unceasing throng of visitors will discuss the merits of the last new variety, or of a plant more perfectly grown than its neighbour. Here, too, I saw plants of single chrysanthemums, like great soft pink daisies, grown in tall narrow porcelain pots, grey-blue in colour; left untrained and unsupported the main stem fell over the side of the pot, and the whole plant hung down with natural grace; the effect was charming, and I could not help thinking might easily be accomplished in any garden.

At the end of the year may also be seen the dishes being prepared with a combination of plum, bamboo, and pine which will be found on the tokonoma of almost every house throughout the empire at the New Year, bringing good luck and long life to the inmates. Sometimes the combination will be merely a flower arrangement, but usually it is of a more lasting nature, and a little plum-tree covered with soft pink buds, a tiny gnarled old pine, and a small plant of bamboo, will be firmly planted in the dish, a rock and a few stones may be added for effect, and the ground mossed over to suggest great age. Occasionally a clump of some everlasting flower, such as Adonis amurensis, is used instead of the plum.

It is probably in the nursery garden that the traveller will first see one of the toy gardens called Hachi-niwa—dish gardens—where a perfect landscape and a well-known scene is accurately represented within the limited area of a shallow china dish, varying in size from six inches in length to two feet. Here we have another art, for the making of Hachi-niwa is almost as much trammelled by rules and conventions as its fellow-arts of flower arrangement and landscape gardening, and the same unbending law of proportion is the first consideration. Just as the landscape gardener chooses the scene which his garden is to represent, in proportion to the size of the ground which the future garden is intended to cover, so the maker of a Hachi-niwa must choose his scene in proportion to the size of his dish; or, as his choice of dishes may be infinite, varying from a few inches upwards, and being in shape round or oval, long and narrow, with square or rounded ends; so having decided on his landscape, he may then choose his dish. As I had been much attracted by these little miniature gardens, each in itself a perfect picture, I determined to learn something of the manner of their construction and to try and grasp a few of the principles of the art. I had heard of a gardener in Kyoto who was a great master in the art, a disciple and pupil of one of the Tokyo professors, who might tell me what I wished to learn. On my first visit to his house he looked incredulous at the idea of a foreigner wishing to study the art of Hachi-niwa. Thinking I could only wish to purchase a ready-made garden to carry off as a curiosity, he appeared decidedly reserved, and reluctant to impart any information on the subject of their composition. A friend who accompanied me, and was more eloquent in his language than I was, assured him that I was in earnest—not merely a passer-by, but one who had already spent many months in his country; then his interest awoke, and he asked me to return the next day, when he would have all the materials prepared and I could choose my own subject.

Many a happy hour did I spend making these little gardens and learning something of their history. A certain paraphernalia is necessary for the construction of these miniature landscapes, and the requisite materials include a supply of moss of every variety—close cushions of moss to form the mountains, flat spreading moss to clothe the rocks, white lichened moss to carpet the ground beneath the venerable pine-trees, which in themselves are especially grown and dwarfed, till at the age of four or five years they will only have attained the imposing height of as many inches; leaning and bent pines for the scenery of Matsushima or the garden of Kinkakuji, groves of tiny maples for Arashiyama, and pigmy trees of all descriptions. Finally, there are microscopic toys to give life to the scene—perfect little temples and shrines, in exact imitation of the originals, modelled out of the composition that is used for pottery, baked first in their natural colour, then coloured when necessary and baked again; coolies, pedlars, pilgrims in endless variety, less than an inch in height; bridges, lanterns, torii, boats, junks, rafts, mills, thatch-roofed cottages—everything, in fact, that is necessary in the making of a landscape, down to breakwaters for the rivers, made like tiny bamboo cages filled with stones, such as exist at every turn of rivers like the Fuji-kawa. The necessary implements consisted of chop-sticks, the use of which is an art in itself, a trowel suggesting a doll’s mason’s trowel, a tiny flat-iron for smoothing the surface of the sand, besides diminutive scoops for holding only a few grains of sand, a pair of enlarged forceps for placing the moss, little fairy brooms about two inches long to sweep away sand which may have got out of place, and a sieve of like dimensions to sift white powder for a snow scene, and, finally, a fine water sprayer to keep the moss damp and fresh.

When the selection of the dish has been made—the regulation kind being of white or mottled blue china, in size twelve inches by eight, or eighteen inches by twelve, about one inch deep—and the scene decided upon, damp sifted earth will form the mountains and the foundations in which the rocks are embedded; the hills are carefully carved and moulded into perfect shape; crevasses, down which a torrent of white sand will flow, to represent a river, or a mountain road running between a gorge of terrific rocks, are marked out. Then will come the firm planting of the stones, toy temples, houses, or bridges; the position of the trees is carefully weighed and considered; and last of all comes the sand—sand of a deep grey colour for deep water, lighter in colour for the shallows, yellowish sand for the ground or roads, snow-white granite chips for water racing down from the mossy mountains or dashing against the cliffs, coarser shingle for the beach in sea scenes; and the correct use of all these sands is a history in itself, as all the different coloured varieties come from the different rivers of Japan, and to use the wrong sand to represent water or earth would be an unforgivable crime in the eye of the master.