Plant

Sunflower

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It is the middle of Summer in the UK. The weather is so far so good. Many sunny days and also a few rainy days. It is great for plants and nature. In the summer time one plant you cannot avoid talking about is ‘Sunflower’. The most significant things about this flamboyant flower are its huge flowerhead with array of magnificent yellow petals and big leaves. It’s called ‘Himawari’ in Japanese and it means the ‘thing moves with the sun’. It came from the plant’s nature that the flowerhead moves its direction by always trying to face toward the sun. 

Sunflower

During this summer time I wanted to make this most summer-like flower as a Japanese sweet.

Sunflower pp4p

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Holland Park, Part 2 – Gardens in Not Yet Spring

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After visiting the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park I wandered about the rest of the Park to look for some signs of spring.

The main part of the Park has some formal gardens. Do you know the concept of formal garden means the garden is created in symmetrical patterns? These flowerbeds are placed totally symmetrically so it is a very typical formal garden.

Holland Park 2-4

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Visiting Holland Park, Part 1 – the Kyoto Garden

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Despite the scares happened last week, London is still a safe and great place to live and visit. One such place I went a few days ago after delivering some Japanese sweet to Wasoukan Cafe (Notting Hill, London) was one of the Royal parks.

Holland Park

Holland Park1

It is Holland Park in the Kensington area of West London and it is not that I traveled to our Neighboring contry, the Netherlands. Although it is located in the middle of rich residential area, the park is wide spread and is composed of several different types of garden.

As soon as you enter from the main gate you unexpectedly face several palm trees. I think it is quite unusual as a Royal park.

Holland Park3

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Camellia

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It is usually ‘Red’ that I see as the first colour in my garden at the start of every New Year. It is the flowers of Camellia we have at the very back of the garden. Dots of the deep red are the sparkles which brighten up the garden in wet and gloomy days but the shrub hasn’t had the colour yet this year. It has many flower buds waiting to open but they are still tightly closed. Maybe it’s because of the mild winter this season. Only recently we have started having normal cold weather. Nature is sensitive to climate change so my Camellia shrub must have been a little confused.

By hoping to see my Camellia Red soon, I made some sweets in the shape of the flower.

Camellia, Nerikiri

camellia-3-side

It is Japanese sweet called ‘Nerikiri‘. I made a Red flower with a white tinge and a white one with a red tinge.

camellia-1-2

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3 Million Red Spider Lilies ‘Higanbana’ (彼岸花/曼珠沙華)

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Higanbana with sky

I apologise that I could not post regularly recently whilst I was staying in Japan but I am back in London now and hope I can get back on track. My stay in Japan was mainly for a family matter but I made some small trips and had some good food experiences in my spare time so I am going to publish some posts from today.

Red Spider Lily ‘Higanbana (彼岸花)’ along Yakachi River

So, my first catch-up post during my visit in Japan is about the little trip I made in September to see this famous area that was covered with Red Spider Lilies ‘Higanbana‘ (Lycoris radiata) which is also called Cluster Amaryllis in English. 3 million flowers were literally clustered around in this vast area along the bank of Yakachi river in Handa, Aichi prefecture.

Higanbana spread out

It was just a magnificent view of a red stripe of flowers spreading as far as you could see.

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