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flowerflower

chrysanthemum

Why are we fascinated by The U. K.? I feel connected to British flowers. I feel a special relationship between myself and The U. K. I'll start from the beginning but it's a long story.
Officially speaking I became interested in gardening under the influence of my father.
While I was young I tried to grow some chrysanthemums in pots even though I didn't have enough time. The drivingway at the front of my house was filled with lots of pots, over fifty, and in the end I had to rent a parking space near my house.
On weekdays my wife had to water the chrysanthemums despite the face she was busy looking after the children. At that time I went on business trip during a week, so I couldn't go back home for 5days period due to my work.
That pattern continued for nine years.
As soon as I got back home in the evening from the business trip after an interval of one week, I used to take care of all my chrysanthemums with the headlamp of my car turned on, never going into the house.
What's more important to you your children or chrysanthemums, I was frequently asked by my wife. My three children used to say, "These are my daddy's treasure-chrysanthemums." Actually I was almost taken to hospital in an ambulance due to inhaling a lot of insecticide.
Seven years later I had become very green fingered and my chrysanthemums were admired by a horticulturist.

After that I had to move to Tokyo for work with my family. I wanted to carry all the flowerpots plus my furniture but I was given a warning from my company. "THere's too much to move. Please just take the important things".
But I told them all goods were important for my family , and finally I was permitted to take them to Tokyo. We only had a tiny garden plot and ,worst of all, it didn't get much sunshine and was poorly ventilated. Eventually all my lovely chrysanthemums died. Later I became busier with work on weekday. In addition, I started to support the football team my youngest daughter belonged to, so I didn't have any spare time to care for the flowers on weekend. Little by little I paid less attention to my flowers.

peony

After a while I had to move again to Mie City through my work without my family. Since I was busy at work. I had little spare time. All housework ( cooking , house cleaning , washing , ironing jI did on by myself and enjoyed it. One of my days off I found a book "Temples With Flowers In Nara" in the bookshop in Mie. I looked through the book and was fascinated with the beautiful photos with the traditiol architecture matchings seasonal flowers. Then I realized flowers gave me pleasure and peace of mind. Luckily Nara city was not so far away, if I got on the Kintetsu train from Mie station , I could arrive at Nara after an hour and a half. I began to visit a large number of temples with beautiful gardens in the company of with my wife who had come from Tokyo every two weeks.
While staying in Nara we found a lot of tasty food and restaurants with nice dining rooms. We also traveled through out Mie Prefecture and were fascinated by the flowers. We went to Nara for that purpose every day , during the eGolden Week' holidays , taking advantage of the special tickets, which were available to let us set on and off wherever we wanted for three days. After four years we had completely visited all the temples, which were pictured in that photography book.

I had to move to Nagoya city again. I bought a book "Temples with Flowers In Kyotoh, too. Our travels in pursuit of flowers continued for 7years . It extended from Nara , Kyoto , Gifu , Shiga and Aichi prefecture. To see a lot of tulip we went to Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki and Tonami in Toyama prefecture. We have ever visited over 150 famous places of flowers for seven years.

Huis Ten Bosch

I came back Tokyo again. Our inquiry into beautiful places with flowers continued further , and we have traveled from place to place in Kanto area, Tohoku and Hokkaido area.
At last we went abroad. We have joined a lot of package tour , Romantic highway ,Switzerland , Paris and Ten cities in Italy.
One day my wife found a package tour, which included the home stay in Cotswoldfs and village hopping in England.
On this tour I was removed the scale from my eyes. Though every famous garden and the look of stores and houses were very beautiful, but private house's garden was the most beautiful in it.
I've come back to the starting point "It's better to breed flowers than to look".

My garden in Tokyo is tiny plot of garden and , worst of all , it didn't get much sunshine and was poorly ventilated. But I was anxious for making wonderful garden here. As the condition was much different with England , it was difficult to make English garden in Tokyo. Let's go to England again to see gardens to study plant variations.
Then I examined. There are a lot of gardens in England , but there isn't any package tour to visit all the gardens. In that case we should go to England by private . In England , driving rule is the same as Japan ,that is , to keep left. We could rent a car!
Where shall we stay? There are bb (bed & breakfast) , country house and manor house . All of them make me interesting. At last I had plan to drive the countryside to visit some gardens .
After that I have been absorbed in the various type of gardens ,the beauty of flowers , the spirits of The National Trust ,English human feelings , the comfortable driving , the enjoyment of pub , the shopping and et cetera. All the things seems to get on well with me.
I am thankful to everybody to be patient to read my long story.

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