I am at the Jindai Botanical Park in Chofu. After photographing the wisteria trellis, I headed to the azalea garden, which was in full bloom a little early.
When I think of azaleas, I usually only see the ones planted as street trees. No, the ones that bloom in April and May are beautiful enough, but at this azalea garden, I am overwhelmed by the variety of species.
Each tree is a different variety, with flowers that vary slightly in color and shape. And since they’re azaleas, the number of flowers blooming on a single tree is truly astonishing…
A friend described azaleas as “blooming EXPLOSIVELY from a single tree,” which is a perfect way to describe them. It’s truly an explosion of late spring flowers.
These red flowers… the color looks like it’s been oversaturated even with the naked eye.
It’s too red. It’s a color that would make a camera cry, but the LUMIX camera and PhotoLab did their best to capture it without saturating it.
I wonder how they maintain the overgrown branches of the trees. To the untrained eye, it doesn’t seem like the kind of maintenance that a professional gardener would do in a traditional garden, such as shaping the trees or creating the overall layout of the garden. It seems more like letting the trees grow naturally, allowing them to bloom as they please, but keeping them trimmed below eye level to avoid chaos.
I think this “azalea garden” is primarily a cultivation site aimed at keeping various azalea flowers healthy and blooming to preserve their seeds. It’s not really suited for the enjoyment of admiring it as a garden.
That said, during the peak of the flowering season like this time, the sheer volume of diverse trees and flowers becomes overwhelming, my eyes and brain grow tired from looking and photographing, and the reactions start to slow down.
In short, I get bored. It’s not that it’s boring, but I start to feel like, ”I get it, so give me a break.”
Finding something like these white flowers blooming quietly in the shade makes me feel a little relieved (laughs).
This is just right (laugh).
So, following the wisteria, I also thoroughly enjoyed the azaleas in full bloom.
The weather is nice, so let’s take a little more stroll around the garden.
