One marked feature of the people, both high and low, is a love for flowers. Almost every house which has any pretension to respectability has a flower-garden in the rear, oftentimes indeed small, but neatly arranged; this adds greatly to the comfort and happiness of the family. As the lower parts of the Japanese houses and shops are open both before and behind, I had peeps of these pretty little gardens as I passed along the streets; and wherever I observed one better than the rest I did not fail to pay it a visit. Everywhere the inhabitants received me most politely, and permitted me to examine their pet flowers and dwarf trees. Many of these places are exceedingly small, some not much larger than a good-sized dining-room; but the surface is rendered varied and pleasing by means of little mounds of turf, on which are planted dwarf trees kept clipped into fancy forms, and by miniature lakes, in which gold and silver fish and tortoises disport themselves. It is quite refreshing to the eye to look out from the houses upon these gardens. The plants generally met with in them were the following:—Cycas revoluta, Azaleas, the pretty little dwarf variegated bamboo introduced by me into England from China, Pines, Junipers, Taxus, Podocarpus, Rhapis flabelliformis, and some ferns. These gardens may be called the gardens of the respectable working classes.
Japanese gentlemen in Nagasaki, whose wealth enables them to follow out their favourite pursuits more extensively, have another class of gardens. These, although small according to our ideas, are still considerably larger than those of the working classes; many of them are about a quarter of an acre in extent. They are generally turfed over; and, like the smaller ones, they are laid out with an undulating surface, some parts being formed into little mounds, while others are converted into lakes. In several of these places I met with azaleas of extraordinary size—much larger than I have ever seen in China, or in any other part of the world, the London exhibitions not excepted. One I measured was no less than 40 feet in circumference! These plants are kept neatly nipped and clipped into a fine round form, perfectly flat upon the top, and look like dining-room tables. They must be gorgeous objects when in flower. Farfugium grande, and many other variegated plants still undescribed, were met with in these gardens, in addition to those I have named as being favourites with the lower orders.
Yedo and Peking (1863)
In the extensive garden and grounds which surround the temple [at Asakusa], we saw most curious specimens of the national skill in training plants (some of them not more than from one to two feet high) to assume the appearance of ancient trees. There were also some most grotesque wooden figures clothed in garments of chrysanthemum, and placed in all sorts of ridiculous attitudes. One, for instance, represented a boy tumbling head over heels, the different parts of his dress being formed by the foliage and flowers of different colours: the trousers brown or green, the coat yellow, and the waistcoat white.
A steam engine and railway carriage, nearly as large as real ones, were most perfectly modelled in the same way. The body of the carriage was green; yellow flowers formed the foot-board; the wheels were brown, and the windows some other colour. How these growing plants can be trained in such a marvellous manner baffles my comprehension; but the artists must not only possess skilful hands but infinite patience, as well as most grotesque imaginations.
Letters from China & Japan (1875)
We spent the morning in a visit to the Emperor’s private gardens. He was in Tokyo at the time, but we were fortunate enough to get an order through Archdeacon Shaw to see them. One of the palace officials was sent to explain everything to us. Our first impression was decidedly one of disappointment. Was this the Imperial garden? Here were no flower-beds and no flowers, only an intensely stiff arrangement of little stone paths and bridges, leading to a few plain summer-houses, and interspersed with curiously dwarfed trees, which seemed to have every bit of natural grace trained out of them. Their straight or sharply angular branches were supported on bamboo crutches, drooping over ponds of exceedingly definite outline, on whose banks every stone seemed to stand at attention!
Yes, it was most necessary to get into the “spirit of a fan.” But having got there, our admiration began to grow, and we could see how exceedingly representative of Japanese taste that garden was. Each carefully calculated hillock bore in their eyes a poetical resemblance to Mt. Fuji. Each pond or row of stones suggested to them peace or rest, or had some philosophical meaning not to be fathomed by a hasty glance. The devotion of a minute unwearied skill—the condensation of effect in the narrowest compass—it was this that was so truly Japanese, and, as we saw at last, possessed a quaint fairy-tale beauty of its own that made us most grateful for our glimpse into the Emperor’s gardens.
Japan As We Saw It (Bickersteth) (1893)
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