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Queer Things about Japan
(1904, Second Impression):
[12] "...If he can do nothing more, every Japanese who can afford them will have a row of blue and white pots with dwarf fruit or fir trees. The fir trees are taught floral gymnastics, and the fruit trees are let off bearing fruit on condition of having double blossoms. Fir trees are expected to grow smaller as they grow older. The Duchess of Connaught, when she was leaving Japan, had one given her which had been growing so long that it was no bigger than a stockbroker's buttonhole, and not so tall as a Jew's cigar [sic]. [111] "Almost the only things in the fair which were not fiftieth hand, and going at what you liked to give for them, were the gardeners' stalls; they were there for the fortunate to provide themselves with the flowers, without which no Japanese house is considered decent on New Year's day. The chief of these were the dwarf plum trees, blossoming at Christmas time in pink, red, purple, or white, whose little gnarled boughs are curled round like the tendrils of a rambler rose. They were only a foot or two high, and grown in blue or white china pots. Their closest rivals were the dwarf fir trees, which had no special significance at that season; and Japanese lilies, growing in water in flat china dishes, which were in full blossom. The fair closed at [112] midnight. We were the only foreigners there -- about the only people who had come to buy, and were offered many curious wares..." [167] "JAPAN is rapidly being recognised as the land par excellence of gardening. The Japanese seem to be able to talk to their plants as the people in Mr Kipling's jungle stories talk to their animals. At all events, the trees and flowers tell their secrets; and the Japanese listen to what they say, and humour them -- with marvellous results. At present, when the English hear of Japanese gardening, they think at once of dwarf trees; but I shall leave the consideration of them to a later chapter which deals with the miniature Japanese garden which I have in my house, merely mentioning one instance to show what constant care it requires to keep the dwarf trees from resuming their ordinary proportions. "There is in the temple of Iyeyasu, at Nikko, the most beautiful of all the temples of Japan, a tall fir tree, which was once a dwarf, growing in a blue and-white china pot, carried by Iyeyasu in his [168] kago (palanquin) in all his campaigns. When the hero died and became a god, it was planted outside the stable, where the white horse was kept always ready for him, in case he should return to the earth; and at once resumed its habits and powers of growing..." "[176] As this is not to be a globe-trotter's description of his gentle adventures, but a lesson how to get Japanese gardening effects at a low cost, I will say a word or two about blossoming fruit-trees and lily-growing in bowls, and leave the Chinese garden to occupy the bulk of another chapter. "One December day, in 1889, we went over from Yokohama to Tokyo to have a Japanese banquet and see the famous dancers at the celebrated Maple Club at Shiba, the garden suburb of Tokyo. At Shiba are to be found the best dancers in Japan. The Maple Club is a delightful little place. It is built entirely of maple wood, unpainted and unpolished, and every one of its decorations, from the door-handles to the flat princess cushions (fu-ton) on which you squat at the banquet, is made of, or decorated with, some representation of the maple. The shoji, or paper shutters, which divide up the rooms and come out when they are wanted -- you can turn the whole of [177] a Japanese house into one great room, or divide it up into a multitude of small ones in a few minutes -- were decorated with glorious old paintings of the maple tree in its autumn glory. But what tickled me most were the maple trees in china flower-pots, and the tiny Chinese garden with dwarf maple trees growing in it. The flower-pots were fascinating. They were mostly much taller and slenderer than our flower-pots, mostly four-sided and not round, and mostly of blue-and-white china, or, rather, earthenware. The little trees, some of which had red leaves, and some white, and some pale green, and some delicately variegated, ought, I suppose, by rights, it being December, not to have had any leaves at all; but the Japanese can coax their plants into obeying almost any wish of their kind and indulgent masters. They varied between six and eighteen inches or even two feet high. It is the fir-tree (Mat su), not the maple, which the Japanese take such pains to dwarf. But this was the Maple Club, and everything had to be maple here; and lovely they looked, these slender, feathery, little pink, white, and apple-green maples, so elegant that one knew how the legends of tree-nymphs had arisen in ancient Greece. I have some of them in my house now, bought at a florist's in the Kensington High Street. I must confess to having received rather a shock when, from the [178] top of the red 'bus, I saw displayed on the pavement the quaint little trained maples of Japan, at prices from one-and-ninepence upwards. "I am not in the least likely to forget that winter afternoon, for it was in the course of that banquet that I had my accident. It is this which enables me to remember that it was on that day that I first saw the fragrant Japanese (narcissus) lilies growing in water out of little heaps of choice pebbles. The Japanese grow them in flat blue-and-white dishes, with perpendicular rims about two inches high. "The dwarf blossoming fruit-trees did not make my acquaintance till a week or two later, on the last day of 1889. We had been told that the great fair held in the Ginza at Tokyo on the last night of the old year was one of the sights of Japan. No Japanese household is complete on New Year's day without a dwarf gnarled plum-tree growing in a blue-and-white earthenware pot, and covered with blossom. How they get plum-trees in full blossom on the 1st of January is a mystery known only to the Japanese gardeners. But they certainly do; and these quaint little plum-trees, with their white, pink, crimson, and purplish blossoms, are generally twisted round and round like the crimson-rambler roses in pots used for table decorations in England. The plum-blossom is one of the favourite and most signifi-[179] cant flowers of Japan. It is the emblem of poetry; its sprigs are used more than any other for putting in vases in front of the images of the gods, or standing in the little recess called tokonoma, which is on the north side of the guest-room of every house. These little trees generally stand about a couple of feet high (not including the pot), and, in Japan, you can buy them for a shilling or two in quite handsome pots, and covered with blossom. So far they have not reached England. Their presence at the fair in the Ginza was for people who had sold more than enough to pay their debts, and were able after all to indulge in a plum-tree for New Year's day." [367] "Once through that gate [of the Two Kings at the Temple of Ieyasu] the East burst upon my [368] eyes in full glare. I stood in a vast courtyard, surrounded by a scarlet palisade, and filled with the paraphernalia of a god. I stood right under a gigantic koyamachi tree, and was told that it was once a dwarf in a flower-pot carried about by Iyeyasu in his palanquin like a toy terrier." These illustrations were drawn from the garden itself by Miss Margaret Thomas. 
My Japanese Garden in Kensington. 
CHAPTER XXVII MY JAPANESE GARDEN IN KENSINGTON "IN this chapter I fly [sic] from Japan to the flat in Kensington, where I keep my Japanese treasures, none of which interest my friends more than my Japanese toy-garden. "The Japanese have given the phrase 'home-gardening' -- a new meaning for us -- with their dwarf blossoming fruit trees, their lilies growing in bowls, and their toy Chinese gardens. I may mention at once that the Japanese always call the fascinating little gardens -- like the design on a willow-pattern plate which we associate with Exhibitions of the Japan Society -- Chinese gardens. "I made the acquaintance of toy 'Chinese' gardens a week after landing in Japan, when I went over to Tokyo to see about printing Lester the Loyalist, which was printed and published at the Hakubunsha -- at that time the leading publishing office of Japan. The head of the firm always received me in his private apartments. [408] The special feature of his house which fascinated me most was his toy Chinese garden -- a wonderful little affair, about two feet long by eighteen inches broad, which contained dwarf trees, temples, dwelling-houses, pagodas, bridges, lighthouses, votive lanterns, torii, bell-towers, dancing-stages, tea-houses, and I cannot remember what more, with a river and a lake and little sanded paths. "I made up my mind from that instant to have one of these gardens. Where could I buy all the little bronze ornaments for them? I asked of my publisher. He could not say -- his had been in his family for generations. They were the kind of things you inherited. He really did not know where you could buy them, unless it might be at the great fair in the Ginza, which would be held in the following week, on the last night of the old year, which he said we certainly ought to see in any case, as it was one of the sights of Japan. The Japanese, he explained, settle all debts (among themselves) on the first day of the year, which they keep on our New Year's day. Anyone who fails to do this has no more credit; so they make tremendous efforts and sacrifices to avoid being posted. The great fair in the Ginza is held to enable those, who are still short of the money they owe, to sell enough to supply it. Small householders will bring almost everything in their [409] possession to see what chance article may tempt purchasers. "But all that belongs to another story. I am not going to relate here how I spent a hundred dollars among those poor people on that memorable night, but merely to mention that it was there that I bought the little bronze ornaments for fitting out a toy Chinese garden, which has been the envy of the Japan Society itself. I bought them from an old man, in a brown leather cloak, who was the very embodiment of respectable poverty. I forget what I gave for them, but more than I should have felt inclined to give if it had not been for the head of the Hakubunsha's telling me that I should only be able to buy them by chance, and that no one would part with them, unless he was driven by great want. All the pieces I bought from him figure in both pictures; and I have added a few pieces to them, including the most important piece in the whole collection -- the beautiful little Japanese farm-house, with a steep-pitched, thatched roof, and one of the distorted Japanese fir-trees growing up it. This is a valuable old piece of fine bronze, delicately wrought -- very different from the little moulded pieces of zinc-like bronze which constituted the old man's garden furniture. The rock on which this stands is really a temple washing-fountain cut out of a single block; but I use it for a rock, from its resemblance to the celebrated [410] rock at Nikko, carved with the device of Kobo Daishi, the canonised father of Japanese learning, which faces the avenue of the Hundred Buddhas. "The explanation of the various toy bronzes used in the garden is as follows: -- No. 1 is the farmhouse mentioned above; No. 2 is a bell-tower, such as is usual in Buddhist temples; No. 3, closely resembling it, is the stage used for the kagura dance; No. 4 is a tea-house, built on piles as you have them built out on the side of a mountain or into a river; No. 5 is a little octagonal belvedere; No. 6 is a pier and pier-house; No. 7 is a torii -- the mystic Japanese arch referred to above; No. 8 is an ishi-doro -- one of the huge votive lanterns made of bronze or stone, which it was customary to present in pairs to a temple when a great man was buried there. This I had to model myself from a drawing by Hokusai. I never could buy one small enough for a toy-garden. No. 9 is a five-storied pagoda -- most Japanese pagodas are five-storied; No. 10 is one of the rainbow ark bridges so typical of Japan; No. 11 is a garden paling, with a torii-pattern gate in it; and No. 12 is the monarch of mountains -- Fujiyama, which I also modelled myself, after a picture by Hokusai, because in all my ramblings among the old curio shops in Tokyo and Kyoto, I was never able to come across a second-hand Fujiyama. Miss Margaret Thomas, the illustrator of my article, [411] who took a silver medal at the Royal Academy in Sculpture, very good-naturedly made a cast from this model for my garden. I did my modelling in ordinary modelling wax; and anyone with a taste for modelling will find it quite easy to model the furniture of the exact size required for a Japanese toy-garden if she goes to the South Kensington Museum, and makes drawings from Hokusai's illustrations of Japanese life. "Now that I have labelled the pieces I bought from him, I wish to explain certain features which occur in most of these gardens, and the way in which I had my garden constructed in England. "Several different kinds of ornamentation enter into these gardens. In the first place, there are dwarf trees. The Japanese do not dwarf their trees on purpose for these gardens. In fact, you see them more often in choice flower-pots used as individual ornaments; but the best toy-gardens must have dwarf trees, and the trees par excellence for dwarfing are the Japanese firs, with queer little pompons of dark green leaves, which enter into so many of their pictures. Next in importance to the trees come the little bronze models of temples, houses, bridges, pagodas, lanterns, and so on. Then comes the ornamental stone-work. For the grounds attached to their mansions, the Japanese go to great expense in buying rare or fantastic pieces of stone-work. Huge sums, for instance, are paid [412] for large pieces of coral. They insert the same kind of stone-work on a smaller scale into their toy-gardens. But stone-work forms a very important feature in their toy-gardens in another way: they choose pieces whose natural bumps and hollows make them look (and photograph) like mountains, or cliffs, or rocky hills, and with these they constitute a miniature mountain landscape [sic], as shown in the large illustration, upon whose plateau the little buildings rise, or the little inch-high figures are grouped. So essential do the Japanese consider choice stones for these toy-gardens that the foreman of the Hakubunsha, who acted as interpreter in my printing arrangements, and accompanied us to improve his English on any of our expeditions for which he could spare time, brought me a collection of the proper stones for such a garden in a quaint, faded, green bag, which I have still. The stones, of course, constitute the rocks of my garden. His name was Mayeda San. "Quite as important a feature as any of the foregoing is the introduction of water into the gardens, which, to be complete, must have islands and bridges. The ingenious introduction of water, therefore, is of great moment. "The prime object of every tiny garden is to produce a thing which, when it is photographed or drawn, looks exactly like a real landscape. I set [413] to work on my garden knowing this. First of all I had a mahogany frame, 2 feet long, 18 inches broad, and 2-1/2 inches deep, made, with battens screwed across the bottom instead of a single piece, that it might be easier to lift the zinc out of it, if ever it should be necessary. The garden itself is constructed in a zinc basin of exactly the dimensions to fill the mahogany frame. In one corner of this zinc there is a tap for letting off the water. The mainland of the garden is in two portions at opposite ends of the zinc, and is made by bending strips of zinc, 2-1/2 inches wide, into uneven coastlines, and soldering them to the bottom so that they are water-tight. These are filled with soil, and covered with tough, deep moss, selected on account of its resemblance to a range of gentle hills. This gave me two ranges of grassy hills for erecting my little bronze buildings on. About half the space of the garden is devoted to these two pieces of mainland; the other half lying between them, rather in the shape of an hour-glass, is filled with water. In that water are introduced several pieces of stone, which give the effect of rocky islands, and divide the water up into a lagoon in the front part of the garden, and two winding rivers in the back part. The longest island is connected with the two pieces of mainland by little bronze bridges. "As I found the perfectly straight line of the [414] mahogany frame a little severe, I added a shallow tray on a higher level behind, with fresh ranges of hills made out of moss, and a still higher platform, faced with stone-work, and crowned with a model of Fujiyama. The frame is kept out of sight by a covering of thin, split bamboo cut off a fine blind, which gives exactly the effect of the split bamboo fences so common in Japan. "The attempt to introduce dwarf trees gave me a great deal of trouble, as there was no drainage to the land portion of the garden, and the moss had to be kept very wet. The trees invariably died, so I had to cast about for substitutes. Violets in their season I found very good -- perhaps the size of the buildings can best be brought out by saying that the violet leaves towered over them. I found, to my surprise, that the violets blossomed freely in spite of the gasiness of the room at night I knew that the effect would be more realistic if I nipped the flowers off; but I had not the heart to do it, after the violets had shown such pluck. Forget-me-nots, while they are young, make admirable miniature trees; they, too, are more realistic if the flowers are nipped off, but they flower so provokingly well. Finally, I fell back on that indestructible vegetable -- the Michaelmas daisy. "People who are constituted as I am will not be satisfied unless they can have their mimic and miniature trees growing; but a better effect is [415] really secured by buying little branches of evergreens, of the right appearance, from your florist, and trimming them into trees of the desired shape and size. These last a very long time. The effect of paddy-fields can be secured by sowing seeds like cress, and it is easy to introduce variety into your garden by dividing your hills and meadows of moss with paths of white sand. Obelisk-shaped pieces of coral form very appropriate ornaments on jutting capes. And always remember that, allowing for the distorted drawing of native artists, you can get quite a good idea of the Chinese gardens, so popular in Japan, from the ordinary willow-pattern plate." 1 |