The NHK morning TV drama “Ran-man,” which aired in the first half of this fiscal year, was quite popular and drew a lot of attention to the botanist Dr. Tomitaro Makino, who was the model for the drama. I was one of those who were carried away by this popular interest, and visited the Makino Memorial Garden in Nerima Ward, Tokyo.
Since I would be photographing flowers and plants in the rather small garden this time, I prepared a Lumix G99 and Leica DG12-60mm for mobility, and a Leica DG MACRO45mm for close-up shots just in case.
We started our mission from Oizumi-gakuen Station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line.
We came in under not so hot temperatures, but cloudy and humid. The Seibu Ikebukuro line is probably the most remote area for me, even though I have lived in Tokyo for many years. I wondered if I would be able to get there by relying on google map.
The area around the station is neatly laid out in an urban manner, but once you step out of the station, you will find a narrow and winding town with a mixture of stores and residences, which is typical of Nerima.
In the above photo, the PR banner featuring Dr. Makino in the upper right corner is noteworthy. The energy of the local merchants, who are trying to take advantage of the prestige and contents of the national broadcaster NHK, can be felt in the banner. Makino Garden? It is not a place that one would expect to find it never heard of, so there seems to be little need to worry about getting lost and not being able to find your way there.
The sky was gloomy , but I told myself that this kind of weather is better for taking pictures of plants.
After a 3-4 minute walk, a sign for Makino Garden appears. This sign tells you how important this place is to the locals and how excited they are about it.
The entrance to the garden is just around this corner.
This is the place where Dr. Makino lived for 30 years as his final home, and now Nerima Ward has preserved part of his private residence, established a new memorial facility, and maintained and opened the garden to the public. They are very generous in offering free admission to the garden.
The garden was originally the garden of a private residence, so it is not huge, but the 12mm angle of view of the m4/3 camera was still too small to capture the whole view. The rich greenery in the middle of a residential area in Tokyo.
I tried to avoid people in the photo as much as possible, so the park looks sparsely populated, but in fact it was quite busy, and the walking paths and exhibition halls were full of visitors.
The planted trees around the bust of Dr. Makino were Sueko-zasa, named after his beloved wife. Isn’t it quite a chic presentation?
Quietly growing behind the bust is a new species, the Maruba-Man-nengusa, which was first registered after its discovery by him, and which has become quite familiar through TV dramas.
If I am not mistaken, the short, rounded-leafed grass in the photo should be Maruba-Man-nengusa, probably.
There are many more things to see in Makino Garden, so I will leave the rest for another time in the next article.
