More private gardens. Top is a mixture of trees in Omiya (Saitama Prefecture)
Bottom somewhere in Osaka, with a nice long black pine being trained along the hedge.
Still on scanned pictures here, hence poor quality.

Once, a few years back, we went to see this house for sale in the hills near Tondabayashi in Osaka.
My brother in law Yoshi nearly bought it, but unfortunately common sense got the better of him. It had a courtyard (through the gate in top pic) that was crying out for a simple garden, and was surrounded by bamboo groves and screaming cicadas. Would have been nice.

This picture has been up before, but removed it. Here it is again, for every one who missed it, or didn't read the Christmas edition of Vogue 2 years ago. We all know Kate Moss, but what about the others? Contemporary British artists,
all in desperate need of a good tripod ladder.

Interesting mainly becasue this is the very first 'live' blog entry, shot today, posted today.
Normally we expect to see hedge cutting done in the winter. Farmers have until a certain date in the spring, when the birds begin nesting, to get it done, but I never knew they could start on August 1st. Being so wet at the moment, there's nothing else for them to be doing, so they're getting on with it now(or catching up with, depends which way you look at it). This hedge, in our fields, was a good 10' higher a couple of hours ago. I've always liked the certainty of flailing. The knowledge that it does no harm, and that long term it's good for the hedge, is something worth remembering in garden pruning too. I also like the look of a just-done hedge, with all the shrapnel lying below. The shapes neat hedges make in the landscape, following the contours, also get me going...

As I write this, I've just heard the tractor head off home, 7.35pm. Otsukaresama!

More poor quality scans, and they couldn't be less seasonal.
A temple in rural Osaka (Osaka is a city, and a Prefecture) in Februrary.
The browny coloured shapes in the centre are azaleas.

Private home in Osaka. More azaleas to the right, almost looking as though they've been cut out and pasted
onto the picture. The drainage ditch along the road is typical of rural Japan, to cope with the heavy rain.
Farmers and gardeners dam the channels and pump water for irrigation.