Japan's Flower Fields & Floral Landscapes

About this book

Written and produced in Japan by Aki Wakamatsu. Japan's greatest flower landscapes are mostly not gardens at all — they are fields. Lavender is a perfume crop in Furano, rapeseed is an oil crop in Takikawa and Ibusuki, tulips are a bulb industry at Kamiyubetsu, and sunflowers feed the cane soil of Miyakojima. This complete guide covers all 200 of Japan's flower landscapes in one uniform format — The Field & the Landscape / History & Culture / Visiting the Flower Country / Notes for Visitors — across five parts: Hokkaido & Tohoku (Farm Tomita, the shibazakura hills, the wild daylily coasts), Kanto & the central highlands (Ashikaga's wisteria, Hitachi's nemophila hill, Tateyama's alpine fields), Kinki, Chugoku & Shikoku (temple peonies, Kishu plum groves, Tottori's great flower park), Kyushu & the southern islands (Kawachi's wisteria tunnels, Kirishima's volcanic azaleas, Ibusuki's January rapeseed, the night-blooming sagaribana of Iriomote), and a closing part on the alpine fields of Oze, Shirouma and Hakusan, the wildflower coasts, the plum villages, and Japan's flower culture of hydrangea temples, chrysanthemum dolls and the Iriya morning-glory fair. The book never guarantees a bloom: flower seasons shift with the weather, so every entry ends with the same instruction to confirm the current bloom and arrangements through the place's own official information. Honest count: the 200 are planted flower fields, flower farms and parks, alpine and coastal wildflower ground, plum groves, and the grounds of flower festivals and customs, each counted once and each real. Text-only edition by design: it teaches the reader to read a flower landscape — its bands, carpets, terraces and successions — instead of photographs.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.