AZALEAS
Early in May the brilliant-coloured azaleas seem determined, by
the splendour of their hues, to try and outshine their graceful,
tender-coloured predecessors the plum, peach, and cherry. Surely no
other plants ever equalled their display of colours--every shade--pure
white, cream, salmon, pink, scarlet, orange, and purple; but even all
this feast of colour will not make up for the delicate colour of the
blossoming trees. There are so many different varieties of azalea, so
many different ways of planting them, and even such a variety in their
natural growth, that it is hard to say in which surroundings they
appealed to me most.
The most celebrated place for “viewing azalea blossoms”--_Satsuki no
hana_--in all Japan is in the district of Shinjuku, a suburb of Tokyo,
where the show gardens, known as the florists’ gardens of Okubo-mura,
present a wealth of colour which I feel powerless to describe. These
gardens, or rather azalea plantations, as no other plants are grown,
are of very ancient date, and were frequented by the Tokugawa Regents,
with whom they were as popular as they are with the sight-seer of
to-day. A few sen will suffice to obtain permission to enter a
never-ending succession of these little gardens, and so dazzled was
I by their splendour that I do not remember that any one seemed more
beautiful than another. Imagine these great bushes of immense size and
great age simply smothered by their blossoms. Not a leaf was to be
seen. My eyes ached at last, and I longed for the repose of a stretch
of green. In and out among great banks of the scarlet and crimson
_Kaba-renge_, the variety which flowers before the leaves appear,--on
past beds of _Azalea indica_ with its large double and semi-double
blooms of every shade, the paths will lead us, as if through a maze;
and surely this mass of colour helps to bewilder one. I was assured one
venerable old bush, the thickness of whose stem testified to its great
age, bore each year eight thousand blooms; so closely packed did the
blossoms appear to be, that it would have been no surprise to me had I
been told they numbered eight million instead of
[Illustration: AZALEAS]
thousands. The whole district was thronged with holiday-makers visiting
the little gardens in one never-ending stream. But one thing differed
here from all the other floral feasts I had ever seen in Japan:
there were few, if any, little tea-houses set up in the gardens for
the entertainment of the guests, who generally sit sipping tea, or
some more potent beverage, and gaze upon the especial flower they
have perhaps tramped many weary miles to see. Here there was no
tea-drinking, they all retreated to the neighbouring restaurants; and
why? The reason was not far to seek: no human eyes could sit and gaze
at that mass of colour for more than a few consecutive moments; one
would leave the garden blinded. The whole air was sweet with their
delicious scent; the bees were busy collecting honey, especially from
the hearts of the _sinensis_ blooms, which seemed the sweetest-smelling
variety. No visitor to Japan should miss spending a few hours at Okubo,
for surely in no other place in the whole world can such a wealth
of colour be seen. The soil near Tokyo must be especially suited to
azaleas, as there are many other gardens and parks which in this flower
month will be gay with their blossoms.
I have mentioned Okubo first, because it is the most celebrated place
for azaleas, here every variety and colour are collected in one dense
mass; but there were many other places where the blossoms gave me more
true pleasure, and where I spent many hours enjoying the scene.
At Nagaoka, in the neighbourhood of Kyoto, many a day have I spent, and
I know of no place where one can sit more comfortably and peacefully
lost in admiration and contemplation. Nagaoka has a large sheet of
water, apparently artificial, but beautified by the great bushes of
scarlet azalea along the shore, and the great splashes of colour in the
water cast by their reflection. Here they are all one variety, with
true fiery scarlet blossoms, and as I sat in one of the little thatched
houses built out on piles in the water, great bushes were crowding
round me; it seemed as though they had even cast their rosy hue upon
the houses, as are not all their walls pink, as if they too reflected
the colour of the blossoms?
I felt I should like to sleep among the azaleas and see them in the
early dawn, and watch the mist clear off the water when the sun’s first
rays would light up their dazzling splendour. But that could not be.
Nagaoka, after all, is only a restaurant, though each party of guests
is entertained in a
[Illustration: AZALEAS, NAGAOKA]
separate little house. They are frail structures these little houses,
with only their paper _shoji_ to protect one from the chilliness of
the night, and remember, summer is not yet here; all through the month
of May there will be a freshness in the air to remind you that spring
is not yet gone. So to Kyoto we must return; but there was plenty of
consolation to be found there.
The gardens of the old Awata Palace were a blaze of colour, the azaleas
lighting up this beautiful old landscape garden, which at other seasons
of the year is apt to look grey and cold and uncared for. The garden
here is like two separate gardens; the first part, complete in itself,
is the work of the great Kobori Enshu, and the second part, where the
azaleas are the glory of the garden, is the work of Soami. Standing
between the two is a grand old lantern, whose history is listened to
with rapt attention by the little knots of sight-seers who are led by
the old priest round the garden and up through the bank of azaleas to
look over the great town below, with Hiesan rising in the distance.
Many a little temple garden is quite transformed when the azalea bushes
are in flower, their little miniature mountain sides are gay with the
blossoms; though often the better the gardens are cared for, the
fewer the blossoms, as, in order to keep the bushes in their regular
and prescribed shapes, the flowers have to be sacrificed. The little
garden of Chishaku-in I can recall, as having the brilliant-coloured
bushes in pleasing contrast to the subdued tones of the clipped box
and juniper-trees, and the greyness of the lichen-covered lanterns and
mossy stones. No doubt there were many such little gardens and also
private gardens, but the flower month is too short, and one can only
visit the most favoured places or where chance happens to lead one’s
steps.
For those who prefer to enjoy the azaleas in their wilder state,
there are many places where they can wander undisturbed and inhale
their scent which comes wafted on the breeze. I am thinking now of
Kasuga Park at Nara, where great stretches of _Azalea sinensis_ form a
brilliant foreground for the wistaria-laden trees. Nature seems to have
arranged a veritable picture, almost too beautiful to be real. These
gorgeous blossoms shade from delicate yellows and pale pink, through to
the brightest orange and flame colour, growing as the woodland scrub.
They are not more than a few feet in height, possibly their growth has
been stunted by the deer; but they form in places a real carpet or
clothe the
[Illustration: AZALEAS, AWATA]
banks of the little streams, their colour vying with the splendour of
the great temple beyond.
I had heard so much of the beauty of the cherry blossom and wistaria
and the glory of the maples, and their fame is amply justified; but
no one had told me of the beauty of the azaleas, and never had I
realised how essentially they belong to Japan. Throughout the length
and breadth of the land they seem to grow, and there appeared to be few
places where one variety or another had not found a home. Their pale
purple blossoms were hanging from the cliffs among the white-flowered
andromeda bushes late in April, when I paid a flying visit to Miyajima,
and a few days later I found them again on the banks of the canal on my
way from Otsu. In the country round Hikone the more brilliant-coloured
forms had found a home, and under the old pine-trees, broken here and
there by a rocky projection, or even a few grey tombstones of some
long-forgotten graveyard, the banks were covered with an undergrowth
of azaleas. Farther north the railway leading to Aomori will wind its
way through country which at all seasons of the year is beautiful, but
how far more beautiful when the salmon-pink low-growing azalea forms an
undergrowth to the pine woods; wherever the trees have been thinned
the rocky ravines are all lighted up with their colour. The azaleas at
Nikko and Chuzenji have been described elsewhere, and I feel as if all
the country during those short weeks will “always be seen in my mind
through a rosy hue of azalea blossoms.”