The fascinating enigma of red spider lilies

 

Red spider lilies, in Japanese, “Higan-bana” (flowers which bloom on and around the Autumnal Equinox) have a very peculiar reputation among the older generation in Japan. My grandma, my mother and my mother-in-law all used to say that you can't grow red spider lilies in your home garden.
The reason being that these flowers were likely to bring unwelcome happenings in families- at least this was what they'd been taught. The flowers were often linked to blood and even fire because of their vivid red color. So where does all this come from?

Somehow spider lilies were considered ominous despite their beauty. This was due to a commonly believed association with “death” stemming from a story way back when people buried bodies in the ground after a funeral. To prevent animals unearthing the ground in graveyards, people planted spider lilies in and around graves. The flowers have poison in their bulbs, petals, stems and leaves and grow in clusters. Thus they kept our ancestors’ bodies from being damaged by animals.
Now due to changes in our lifestyle, we don’t use the flowers for this purpose anymore. Nowadays farmers plant spider lilies simply to protect their products from mice, moles, and insects.

Red spider lilies are now, generally speaking, free from this malicious image. However there are still some people who choose to hang on to fears and superstitions and for them red spider lilies are no exception. Ironically Buddhism has a totally opposite view of the flower and regards it as a sign of grace . In Japanese there are more than 1,000 different names for spider lilies, one is “Manjushage”. Sounds exotic, doesn’t it? It comes from Hindi and means - a heavenly flower which doesn't grow on earth but only in heaven!

Nowadays people enjoy watching these flowers bloom in clusters in parks, gardens, rice fields, and riverbanks. They are delightful to look at and weirdly become even more attractive when we hear about the creepy stories surrounding them!
They are just BEAUTIFUL flowers!

The way we name this little plant

 These flowers are called "lizard's tail" in English. Isn't it a "lovely" name?　
It was named so since the drooping flower depicts a lizard's tail, they say.


On the other hand, 半化粧 （はんげしょう）is a Japanese name for these white, slender and drooping flowers. The most beautiful part of this plant is that some leaves have white splashes on the surface as if a woman were putting powder on her face to meet her loved one. That is why we call it "han-ge-shou", which literally means " putting makeup on halfway" in Japanese.
So romantic, isn't it? They delighted my eyes this afternoon at Shirotori Japanese Garden.

The inner gate and garden moss at Shiratori Garden

 

The gate is usually called “chumon”, which means “inner gate" in Japanese, but it also has another name, “baiken-mon”, which means “plum blossom viewing gate".
The chumon gate’s message to visitors is that they should leave worldly affairs behind, come into the world of the tea ceremony and be prepared to enjoy it.
With that message in mind, you can take your time enjoying the peaceful spots in the garden, which is called “roji”, until it is time for the tea ceremony inside the tea house.

In order to protect the moss from the winter frost and snow, the gardeners cover it with dried pine needles. The carpet of pine needles in the winter is another treat for your eyes so that you appreciate the different views of each season.

Every time I visit a beautifully cared-for garden, I feel somewhat guilty for not taking good care of my own traditional garden at home.

A gardener in Kenninji Temple in Kyoto once gave me some advice about caring for moss in a Japanese garden. He said that I should gently rake the surface of the moss every day, making it stand straight. That exposes it to more fresh air and sunlight.
He recommended I water the moss, especially in the height of summer, twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.

I think a garden requires constant care in order to be a delightful space to look at and stroll around.
 
For the entire Shirotori Garden, there are a total of only six gardeners, getting their hands dirty every day, which must be very challenging.

It is also enlightening for me to know that these six gardeners work on one section each day before they move on to the next, and they repeat this until they cover the entire Shirotori garden throughout the year.

If you have a chance to come over to Shirotori Garden in Nagoya, please enjoy several other elements of the inner garden and please feel how carefully the gardeners have taken care of it for you, guests so that you sense the nature in this little garden.


Shirotori Garden
http://www.shirotori-garden.jp/english/index.html

So what happened next ?

So,  as I described in my previous post,  after struggling with picking tangerines in the trees,  there I had the most delightful part of making use of them. Cooking!

Summer tangerine peels from our garden!

I made them twice.  And I learned that I could never have exactly the same result each time.
I followed the same recipe and I believed I did just the same as last time.

I liked the first peels better than the second ones.  They were softer. What brought this result?
That's what the cooking is fun all about.

 

My husband usually doesn't have anything sweets but surprisingly enough he likes its unique bitterness. He says it goes great with a glass of Scotch.
Very good for him.

Since I have still plenty of tangerines,  I'll try out for the third and maybe the fourth and until I feel I enjoy pretty much the seasonal blessing.

Blessings of Nature

Every year the tangerine trees in our garden grow many fruits and it's my job to pick them up.

There are plenty to take and plenty to share with my neighbors as well.

There are still lots in the trees.

I know there are plenty, but once I start picking them, it is so fun that I can hardly stop to rest.

I feel I can pick them all to the very last one.  

Not that I am greedy!

It's because I feel grateful for the blessings of nature.

But I always leave some for little birds which come over to enjoy the meal.

 
With my additional effort, these fruits will make good juice, jelly and marmalade. Hopefully soon.


It is my annual event.
See also my previous post here.

Autumn leaves are at their best

We believe that this year's autumn colors are most vivid that we have seen for years.

Even in Nagoya Castle site which is located right in the center of the city, all the colors of the trees are just stunning. So vivid and colorful enough that they never fail to give us a great admiration to the nature.

It is often pointed out that Japanese autumn leaves are very colorful from green, golden-yellow, orange, brown and red of all brightness.

If you see a picture of Japanese mountains in autumn, it is like a mosaic of different colors.   They say that varieties of deciduous and evergreen trees living together make this colorful foliage possible in Japan.  What a wonderful art work of the nature. 

Now the leaves are at their best colors for some more weeks and soon the grounds will be covered with fallen leaves.

Autumn blessings from our garden

We have one persimmon tree in our garden. We don't really take a good care of it. All we care about this tree is to put some fertilizer into some holes dug at the bottom of the tree near some of its roots. That all we do once in winter.

I looked up this persimmon tree this morning and found most of persimmon fruits are pretty much riped. The shinning color of orange and red of unpeeled fruits looks so delicious.

Why don't I keep them before all the birds come and eat them up.

Using an adjustable long scissors for cutting branches, I gathered about twenty fruits. That was more than I expected.

Of course, I left some persimmon for some birds.

I peeled it and cut it into some pieces and brought them to my mother-in-law.

This is one of her favorites.

Do you like persimmons?

It's been raining all day long

It's a rainy day today.

It's been raining since early morning.

But it's been raining gently and softly.Quiet afternoon-----

every plant in the garden from flowers, trees, moss and even to weeds stay sit to enjoy raindrops.

I love a quiet rainy afternoon.

From our garden

It's the season of Chinese citrons in our garden.
We have two Chinese citron trees and every year they grow fruits.
I wrote the post on this topic last year and the year before the last as well.
It's been repeated and here is my post on Chinese citrons fruits for the year of 2009!
As I usually do (see my previous post), I picked up as many as 150 fruits!
I gave about a half of them to our neighbors.
And for the rest, I enjoy making marmalade, juice and jelly.
Making them to marmalade takes many steps peeling, slicing and cooking.

It'll take some time to make them to marmalade.
So I've decided to start from jelly this year.
Maybe I prefer jelly to marmalade since it has less sugar in it,

and, I suppose, so do the rest of my family.

Such a treat!

A friend of mine's family rase strawberries and get them on the market every year. By the time they get ready for dressing the field for the nest planting, they have to put away all the strawberries from their field of 10 acre. Of course there are still lots of ripe berries in good shape. So he called me and some other friends of him to pick up strawberries before they were thrown away. Mmmmm, when you got inside the house, I smell strawberries. Once we start picking them, gee, there were too many and it didn't take long for us to make each box full of berries. Picking up strawberries while eating was such a happiness.

We brought home boxes of strawberries and I made my famly all suprised. I also dropped by with some small packages of strawberries at my neighboring families as a suprise. We had enough fresh berries. I also made jam and syrup out of them so that we could enjoy it for the time being.