Gardening in japan Tokyo-DIY-Gardening

Living in a far away country I have had to deal with the language barrier many times. I am still a beginner in Japanese and had much more to learn. Because of this many common activities, like going to the store or getting directions, can become a daunting task. So when I started growing my little garden in japan one of the aspects I had to consider was how to overcome all this cultural differences. I could see everywhere profs of how important and beautiful gardening is in here, they have astonishing gardens all around and a very inventive and special approach to the art of gardening. I definitely wanted to learn from them.

Spring sakura in a garden in Japan

Fortunately, gardening has become a bridge for me to reach out to the new culture. I have a lot of fun trying to communicate with people and asking them about this plant or this growing method. Some days the only time I get to speak Japanese is when I visit the garden center or a little gardening shop (not many nurseries in the middle of the city). Little by little, with very simple sentences, a lot of gestures and the occasional drawing I have gotten a small insight into Japanese gardening.

Beautiful autumn Japanese garden

However, doing things this way only allows me to see the tip of the iceberg. But, very luckily, and thanks to my blog, I have meet a lot of wonderful people here in Japan with whom there is not a language barrier problem. And also thanks to them I had gotten a much more in depth look into the Japanese gardening culture.

Two of them are Jared Braiterman and Chris Berthelsen. I had the pleasure of going with them recently for a fascinating walk around Omotesando danchi (an old neighborhood downtown Tokyo).

They have an amazing website called Tokyo-DIY-Gardening. There they have a very inspiring recompilation of stories, examples, instructions, photo essays, observations, interviews, articles and much more about urban gardening. All of it is done with a main focus in sharing and creation around low-cost, simple and easy to do ideas, mostly implemented around Tokyo.

Here is a small description of their project from them

Our Tokyo DIY Gardening project is about people having fun with nature in the city. Too many people think you need to be an expert to grow plants. We want to show that growing plants for food and decoration is easy, and that there are many ways to create space for gardens in even the densest and most crowded city. There's also something social and even magical about improving our always imperfect public spaces. 

They sometimes have activities, like a workshop at The Chiyoda arts center, where they mapped out some Tokyo and its green spaces from the personal experiences of the participants.

One more thing, on that last meeting I was lucky enough they accepted a couple of mints shoots I took from my main plants some time ago. It is great to be able to share part of my garden, It is great to see my little garden in japan growing much farther apart from the little balcony where is set. I am sure they will grow very nicely under their care.

Little mints from my garden

This has also gave me the inspiration to share much more of my little garden, I have a lot of extra seeds, plants and bulbs to give. Anyone wants some?