Good Girls Three

Yesterday we returned to the Oofuna botanical garden to check on the peonies.

Each year here in Japan in my limited experience, there seems to be a day in May, usually towards the last of the month, that the sun seems to wake up and start cooking. Even though the temperature still feels perfect, the sun seems to beat down with extra summer heat. Yesterday was that day, sadly. Miss M had a lobster neck, Misses A and R were flirting with crankiness, and B and I felt pretty sun sick by the time we got home. And then, the MASKS! We've been wearing masks for a long time now, including all through the moist furnace of a Kanto Plain summer. I couldn't figure out why that thin, gauzy piece of fabric was making me so miserable all of the sudden. B reminded me that not only was last summer abnormally cool and rainy here, at least through July, but we spent a fair amount of time in house arrest, locked on base, or banned from public transit- which also means much less walking. In any case, it has me kind of dreading all the final explorations I planned on doing, which is sad! If only Japan could get itself together and vaccinate people! The department of defense has come out and said that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks. Of course Captain Jarrett, our base CO, hasn't approved that here yet- he's a bit tyrannical about giving up control- but it seems likely that soon, on base, we will breathe free air. Off base, with cases sky rocketing, there is little hope.

The garden, Hibiya Kadan Flower Center, has quite a nice tropical/ temperate house, which had an amazing collection of cacti. It makes me excited to go to the Balboa Park cactus garden! And aaaaalllll the botanical gardens that await in Southern California.

We went to check the peonies in the big peony (botan in Japanese) garden. Sadly, we were late, and most of them were done blooming. There were a few left though. I need to make it to the Hase Dera temple in Kamakura this week to see if the Chinese peonies there are still in bloom!

The rose garden was the big story though. It was flamboyantly, ridiculously gorgeous. The scent wafted over the entire garden. We lost two girls to the rose garden. Miss M stayed to watch an artist painting with watercolors, and Miss A sniffed every. single. variety. to see which she liked best. She loves roses. I told her about the Balboa rose garden (yes, I'm excited about that too)!

I loved this one. It's name is Frau Holle. Very glossy dark green leaves with the huge simple flowers.

This is Princess Michiko. I've noticed that a couple of the rose gardens I've visited here have sections with rose varieties all named after Japanese princesses. I've tried to do some research, and it appears that certain growers have developed roses for the Emperor of Japan. They are supposed to all have a long vase life and good aroma (this one certainly did). I would love to find a conclusive list of all of these! But so far the US sites I can find only list about six, and there are way more than that growing here. If any of you know a registered member of the American Rose Society, and can peruse the 37,000 variety list of roses on their website, I'd be grateful!

This rose is one of our favorites, not because it's especially pretty, but because of its thorns!

Here is a picture we took of him in March. His name is Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, and we find him very prickly and cute. We were happy to see him in bloom, although I was surprised that he's pink. I was expecting a nice blood red or something.