Once there was a lake … Hakone Sengokubara, Part 1 箱根仙石原1

Hakone 箱根, one of the most popular National Parks in Japan, has two National Natural Treasures. One is Giant Salamander (Andrias japonicus). It is a Special National Natural Treasure designated in 1952 and lives only in Hakone-en Aquarium. Another is Sengokubara Wetland 仙石原, designated in 1934. Sengokubara is a very famous tourist destination. Especially in autumn, it turns a golden field of pampas grass whose fluffy tufts elegantly swings with chilly winds. To admire it, visitors can walk along Prefectural Road #75, a busy commuter road connecting resort communities spreading around Mt. Hakone. It’s rather difficult to experience ‘wetland’ through Road 75. As the place is National Natural Treasure, real wetland part of Sengokubara is off-limits for tourists. Early October this year, I had a chance to enter wetland of Sengokubara chaperoned by Mr. Teruo Katsuyama 勝山輝男, the Researcher Emeritus for Kanagawa PrefecturalMuseum of Natural History, and the Chairperson for Flora Kanagawa Association. It was a wonderful adventure!

Having said that, we can enjoy wild flowers
 along Road #75 wherever it runs.
 Hey, we’re in National Park!

First, the history of Sengokubara Wetland. The place is spreading on the northeast slope of Mt. Daigatake 台ヶ岳. To its north, there is Hayakawa River 早川 that pours into Sagami Bay 相模湾. The wetland was once a large lake created by active volcanic activity of Hakone. It collected water from rains on the surrounding mountains. Sediments were carried by water flow from the higher altitude and gradually deposited at the bottom of the lake. By roughly 5000 years ago, the former lake became Lake Ashinoko 芦ノ湖, wetlands and a river. River is Hayakawa, and Sengokubara was one of the marshes dotted the zone between Lake Ashinoko and Sengokubara area. During the first half of the 20th century, the entire Hakone was for the craze of resort development. Many marshes were reclaimed to build nice vacation houses. The present-day Sengokubara happened to be difficult to build anything, including rice paddies. But it had lots of Japanese Water Iris (Iris ensata). The Sengokubara village chief in 1933, Mr. Kobayashi, thought it would be nice to make it National Nature Treasure for conservation and tourism economy. As Hakone was already famous for rich Tokyoites, he did not have difficulty to find Dr. Miyoshi Manabu 三好学 who spent his summer in Sengokuhara. Dr. Miyoshi was a person in 1919 to establish the Law of Preservation of Historic Sites and Natural Monuments and an expert for Iris. Dr. Miyoshi pushed Sengokubara to the government for a National Natural Monument. At the beginning only 0.7ha of Sengokubara was designated as a Treasure. Later after 1945, farmers who came back from Manchuria were given the surrounding wetlands by the government to try rice cultivation. They all failed and chose to engage in tourism industry instead. The wetland was returned to the national and regional authorities. The space around the original 0.7ha becomes prefectural or otherwise public land and gradually annexed to the Natural Monument.

In October, all irises were gone to seeds.

So, the preset-day beautiful field of pampas grass is a patchwork of different kinds of public lands. Anyway, people try to maintain and invigorate the place as a meaningful size of ecosystem as a wetland. Recently, Kanagawa Prefecture acquired surrounding forest of Sengokubara that shields the wetland from urbanization by resort development. Next to the forest is Hakone Botanical Garden of Wetlands 箱根湿生花園 that is owned by Hakone Town. People take care of Garden’s wetland to be a model for restoration of the entire Sengokubara Wetland. We entered the restricted part of Sengokubara from the Botanical Garden. It is a really nice garden worthy of your visit even if only for the area open to the public. The place has well-tended native and otherwise vegetations for temperate mountainous area. The majority of the road inside the Garden is barrier-free so that wheelchair users are able to experience nature of National Treasure. If you have a chance to visit Hakone, please check the place.

The entrance to Botanical Garden

Immediately after the gate,
there is this large map and exhibit what to look inside.

This is one of the ponds inside the Garden.
The town maintains the waterflow to keep this place as a pond.
More to this, next week.

Wood decks are provided for visitors
 to stroll the restored wetlands in the Garden.

Wild-looking flowers some of which were actually brought in.
More to it, again next week.

Strolling paths are wide and barrier-free.

The access to Botanical Garden is either by car from Gotemba 御殿場 IC of Tomei Expressway, or by bus from Shinjuku (with Odakyu Hakone Expressway Bus 小田急高速バス) or from Odawara (with Hakone-tozan Bus 箱根登山バス, commuter bus services to Kojiri/Togendai 湖尻/桃源台 Terminal; time-table here). You get off your bus at Sengoku An’naijo-mae Stop 仙谷案内所前, walk 20m or so to the north and turn left at the corner of Lalique Museum. From there its one way stroll of less than 10 minutes to the entrance of Botanical Garden. Next week, I tell you my experience at the wetland itself. Please stay tuned. 😉

The Garden has an ample parking space.

 

Hayakawa River near Sengoku An’naijo-mae Stop

The way from Lalique Museum to the Garden is like this.

Hakone Botanical Garden of Wetlands
817 Sengokubara, Hakone Town, Kanagawa, 250-0631
Phone: 0460-84-7293 

https://hakone-shisseikaen.com/

Botanical urbanization: Shin-Tomei Expressway and planting seedlings

Tomei Expressway is THE artery road for Japan. Connecting Tokyo (“To” part) and Nagoya (“mei,” that is), tons of traffic use this road 24/7. It has many congestions here and there despite it is a toll road and does not have a traffic light. To ease the burden of very busy artery, Japanese government is building an alternative toll road named Shin-Tomei Expressway (“New Tomei”). Well, actually, at least in Kanagawa Prefecture, everybody calls this road Daini-Tomei (“Second Tomei”). So, in this post, I call it Daini-Tomei. Daini-Tomei connects Toyota City, the neighboring city of Nagoya and of course where Global HDQ of Toyota locates, and Ebina City in Kanagawa. At Ebina it joins with Tomei Express Way so that we in Yokohama murmur the effect of Daini-Tomei is not much for congestion of Yokohama IC … Anyway, the construction started during the 1990s, and expected to be completed in 2023. The last remaining part of the construction is at the entrance of Yadoriki Community. They are still preparing tunnels there. Rumor says they’ve encountered some technical trouble under Tanzawa Mountains. The date of full opening could be delayed.

Construction site near Yadoriki.
Hmmmm …
the mouth of the tunnels is not connected to any road yet
 … it would take time for completion …

Near above tunnel is the dumping ground brought from the digging.
Before, the place was one of the garbage lots for neighboring towns.
 As of October 2021, machines are still busy there to stabilize the soil.

Having said that, between Ebina and Hadano IC, the main construction work is done and Shin-Hadano IC and neighboring SA will be open early next year. The local economy who are suffering the impact of COVID-19 has high hopes for new artery road that may bring more visitors. Service Area has the name “Hadano-Tanzawa” where bounties, like veggies, from villages of Tanzawa Mountains will be sold. Business chance! City Hall of Hadano 秦野 is busy marketing the road and places. They are also inviting locals to be familiar with the new road. One such event is Tree-planting Festival on October 23 on the embankment slope of the road. About 60 citizens of Hadano City who raised their hand to join the occasion will enter the site that is normally off limit for pedestrians. I’ll act as a forest instructor to help their planting. The other day we had a preliminary checking session for the festival. This week is my story about this adventure. Well, not as humongous as dams, artery road construction site by the national government looked, I would say, …

Unlike Tomei Expressway that runs along the coast in Shizuoka Prefecture 静岡県, Daini-Tomei runs mainly mountainous inlands. It deforested forests, razed small hills and mountains, and punched holes in the slopes of large mountains. The road site in Hadano was once a sleepy satoyama for agricultural community. When the construction started, NEXCO Central, the actual execution manager of the project, collected seeds of deforested oaks and nurtured seedlings from them. Some acorns were entrusted to kids of elementary schools whose backyard became the construction site. Roughly for 10 years they have been reared to be planted on the embankment. Kanagawa Prefecture also adds selectively bred pollen-less cedars (my post on December 16, 2016) named “Tanzawa Mori-no-Mirai (“Future of Forests of Tanzawa”) whose parent tree was found in Hadano City. I have heard these days it is a common knowledge among professional botanists bringing seedlings from the other places could degrade biodiversity of the place. The foreign plants have difficulty to survive in new environment, and so reforestation often fails. The idea of planting trees out of the seeds of locals is commendable. My point is, the environment these baby trees is not same as for their parents. The way to plant them tells the story.

Backyard for Daini-Tomei.
It is still an agricultural community.

The festival site is near Kami Elementary School 上小学校, the oldest in Hadano City whose predecessor was a temple school since the 17th century. We walked very idyllic country road for few minutes and entered the gate that separated the controlled area of the artery toll road from the ordinary rural community. The forests of broad-leaved trees suddenly opened up with still bare earth where huge construction machineries were operating. The embankment was covered by manufactured green cover mulch which was “Ah, yes, it can control weeds.” The planting will be on the space intentionally “cut” for the seedlings, just like tulips in flower beds. “The markings for location of planting will be ready on that day of festival. The visitors just dig a bit by a small trowel, add this slow-releasing fertilizer at the bottom, locate the root, and finish the planting by adding soil mixed with another fertilizer. It should be easy.” NEXCO people said. Er, well, yeah. It was not the thing we normally do for afforesting. It’s more like a gardening in the city centre.

The construction site

NEXCO is busy treating the embankment with synthetic mulch.

Beds for oaks … are you serious?

Come to think of it, the land for the artery road is intentionally piled up and mechanically hardened for heavy traffic. It’s not as fluffy as forest floor which is made of lots of organic material. The place is just like Olympics Village where the land was once sea but reclaimed by dumping enormous amount of rubbish from megalopolis Tokyo. On the embankment of the Expressway, the nutrition for baby oaks would be very poor. They need lots of fertilizer. With such way of planting, even in 20 or 30 years’ time, the embankment will not be the satoyama forest once the place was. That’s the meaning of “development” … OK, OK. If we recreate natural forest, it will be very hard for protecting the national artery road from encroaching wild vegetation. In the end, Expressway is for factory-made cars to buzz. The acorns from the rural forest will call that urban embankment home … They may be very like us.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with 

Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

For the memory of Paralympians: Thinning Yuzu fruits

Over the Village for Tokyo 2020, one early evening,
 a flock of migratory water birds was passing by.
 They were beautiful …

A nephew of a friend of my family is a grape farmer in Yamanashi 山梨, a neighboring prefecture for Kanagawa. He quitted his office job in Tokyo some 20 years or so ago to nurture gorgeous dessert grapes. After so many trials and errors, his vineyard becomes to earn top prizes regularly in Yamanashi. His grape has golden color of very large fruits, 2cm or 3cm in diameter, and de-li-ci-ous. It is very sweet and juicy preserving slight tanginess of grape. Ya-mmmmmmy!!! Every year, he sends his harvest to our family, in a large box. This year, it arrived during Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. I brought some grapes to National Paralympics Team for a certain country. The athletes and the staff or the delegation loved it and asked if there is more. Er, sorry, it’s once in a year treat …

Japanese residential block
 in the Village during Tokyo 2020.
 Oh, I was not an assistant for
 Japanese National Team, for sure.

To grow that size of grape, it is very important to thin out fruits from very early stage of its growth. I once saw a farmer thinned sesame-sized grape from a bunch of still 5cm or so in length. He had to drop fruits in a strategic way, imagining the final product of perfect shape with grapes of 3cm in diameter. He then does the same at the different point of growth for his crop. It’s a job requires patience.

That grape was definitely larger than this supermarket version.

After Paralympics were over, I cast my eyes to a Yuzu tree in a garden of our family. September is the time when young Yuzu fruits start to have 4 or 5cm of diameter. Our tree had a lots of fruits, for sure. Many of them, still very green, were dangling from the same brunch, rubbing each other’s shoulder … they won’t have blemish-less skin when they turn yellow … I gawped the tree … You know, I was completely exhausted after Tokyo 2020 … It then clicked. Why not thin the green yuzu fruits, and make Yuzu chili sauce? So, I thinned Yuzu fruits from the tree in our garden. I had a bumper crop.

Congested

My harvest!

From these green Yuzu fruits, I’ve made Yuzu Chili Sauce, Green Yuzu Juice for Yuzu Sour, and Green Yuzu liquor. All have a simple recipe, but it takes time for them to mature. Here are recipes.

<Yuzu Chili Sauce>

1. Peel green yuzu. The point here is in order to prevent tart taste to avoid white cushy staff just below the green peel, and any damaged skin of Yuzu fruits.

2. In food processor, mix the green Yuzu peel with salt and green hot chili peppers. The ratio of these ingredients is Yuzu peel 6 and hot chili pepper is 4. Salt is in the weight of 23% of peel and chili pepper combined. Yap, it’ll be very salty condiment. 

3. Store the mixture in a clean jar in refrigerator. The sauce is ready to eat immediately after the food processor. But it matures along several years …

Yuzu Chili Sauce, 2021

The same condiment of 2019.
Could you see how this mixture matures?

<Yuzu Sour Juice / Yuzu wine>

Actually, the process is same for both drinks. First throw in a large jar Yuzu fruits after denuding them. Add the same volume of rock sugar as the fruits, then pour vinegar or distilled liquor such as vodka, gin, whisky … to cover fully the fruits and the sugar. In 1-to-2-month time, the contents of the jar becomes fruits sour (with vinegar) or Yuzu wine (with alcohol).

Yuzu wine some 2 weeks later after preparation …

The thinned green yuzu fruits are now maturing in dark corners of our house. I’m crossing my fingers for them to be a nice company of our table. Let me see how they will turn out …

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make a contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau
横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016
FAX: 045-316-8420

Stroll: 2021 Laboratory of Forest Art

Hi, there. Long time, no see. How are you?

The strangest (probably) Olympics and Paralympics to date are over. And Naomi’s back to Yokohama’s forest! I may have a chance in due time to tell you my experience with Olympians and Paralympians for Tokyo 2020. But today is for my annual adventure with the art show by Laboratory of Forest Art. Actually they have opened their door on 19 September for 2021. Then, there is an artist, Takata Yoshiki, who joined the show for the first time this year. He may have miscalculated the time necessary to complete his work, and during the middle of September he said to the visitors, “I hope I can present my work in early October.” So, I waited and found his installation in the forest just last weekend. He’s kept his promise, you know. This post is for my impression about the complete version of 2021 Laboratory of Forest Art by Group the Creation and Voice of the Woods.

The forest of the Group is as always next to Yokohama Zoorasia. Since there is no parking, a recommended access to the show is by bus. The most convenient transportation is a bus ride to Yokohama Zoorasia, from JR Nakayama 中山 Station, Sotetsu Tsurugamine 鶴ヶ峰 Station, or Sotetsu Mitsukyo 三ツ境 Station. (Timetables are here.) Get off the bus at Yokohama Zoorasia and proceed further along for about 400m to the direction of #2 Parking of the Zoo. On your right, there will be a small gate with the sign GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods. If you visit the place during weekends, many buses will take us to the North Gate of Zoorasia that is the closest to the art exhibition entrance. When you leave the terminal stop of Zoorasia North Gate, go back a bit along the bus road, and on your left is the sign for the GROUP. From there enter the forest. The road is a relatively wide walking promenade. Soon you can see a big banner over there saying “the Creation and Voice of the Woods 創造と森の声.” For 2021 show, the artists presented bonus installations from their entrance from Zoorasia side. Or, you can come to the venue from Hikarigaoka Housing Complex, and leave the forest from Zoorasia after enjoying the promenade installations.

Zoorasia side signpost for their forest

One of the installations along the forest road.

Forest dragon leads us to the entrance of 2021 show.

The installations we can enjoy this year are in this map.

Each artwork has English manifestation presented by the artists themselves. You can find it on site, or in their Homepage. Anyway, here is the impression I’ve received from their show this year.

Installation #1: Yamamoto Mayo, “Amulet Membrane”

I think her installation is practically wonderful to protect trees from oak tree wilt. She wrapped trunks of oaks with transparent curing sheet, put colors with tapes, and hang mesh bags of bark as “amulet.” The result is a vivacious scenery to deal with ferocious infectious diseases ravaging Japanese broadleaved forests. Hey, it’s better to create something of a fun when we have to live with the pandemic, isn’t it?

Installation #2: Kanai Toshikazu, “A fallen trees garden, One year later”

You should hang around the space the artist designated as his installation, in order to figure out what’s “One year later.” Honestly I found this search quite a fun.

Installation #3: ASADA, “Forest Dragon”

And here is ASADA’s dragon. Her work expands freely in a forest space. This presentation is something new as her installations in previous shows are often a symbolic recreation of enclosed domestic life … Her dragon evolves in front of our eyes if we walk around it. Magical.

Installation #4: Takata Yoshiki, “The Intrude?”

And here is Takata’s installation in the forest … Hmmmmmm, the object may indicate why he had to struggle with the environment and go beyond the deadline …

Installation #5: Chikada Haruna, “Forest of B”

This forest of the Group is often used by survival gamers for their fun shooting. The activity itself is prohibited by the City Ordinance. The gamers stomp the vegetation and scatter their pellet, which will quickly contaminate the ground as microplastic. The artists-keepers of the place think the gamers unpleasant. Yet, Chikada took “advantage” of intruders’ droppings to create her artwork. Please go there and find out how you feel when you work around the environment of her work. 😆

Installation #2 Redux: Kanai Toshikazu, “Voyage on a decaying boat”

Maybe, his intention is not the current installation, but the process of change his artwork will embark after the show. Let us visit the place year-around to witness how it will be.

Installation #6: Ishikuro Kazuo, “A Helper, Toh-Ningen (Tower Human)

It’s something an expression of anger by Ishikuro about COVID. Er, well …

Installation #7: Kobayashi Naoko, “Waking up quietly, 2020-2021”

If you think you need human voice or something to be non-quiet, her installation is surely in “quietly” category. But I found it is very lively chatters of forest plants when I walked around the installation and observed typical undergrowth of Yokohama’s forest. How do you think?

Installation #1 Redux: Yamamoto Mayo, “Amulet Membrane”

And when we stroll in the forest to this point, we notice there are several yellow something situated on the trees, large and small, here and there. They are also “amulets” by Yamamoto. To enjoy them, we must look around the trees from different angle. I tell you, it’s a fun!

Installation #8: Harada Akatsuki, “Communication of Trees”

Presenting tree-like objects in a forest is a continuous theme of Harada. This year, his trees are connected by Lines … it may be because of COVID … Can we be closer when we’re recommended to keep distance each other?

Installation #9: Yoshikawa Youichiro, “Ownerless Garden 2021”

Since 2016, Yoshikawa’s installation is to be left alone for its slow evolution. This year, he’s creating circle border by Lily turf and Dwarf Lilyturf … er, well, his effort has started to be swallowed by the forest itself, it seems to me. It must be a part of his “intention,” or forest’s will?

Installation #10: Oka Noriaki, “Forest Circus”

Oka prepared a stage for all the sounds, color, wind, rainwater, etc. of the forest. It’s a small stage perhaps for Lilliputs. We can walk around his installation, and imagine how the wind of forest presents her/his performance there …

Strolling to find artworks, I suddenly noticed walking around the art installation is really liberating. Unlike in art museums, here we can go to the back of installation, touch the work, or see them from the ground level of weeds. The artists’ creation is not in a white-walled empty space, but in Yokohama’s forest. The amount of info we receive in this way would be far larger than we obtain from a standard art exhibition. The wealth of stimuli reaching to our 5 senses is definitely rich, and so relaxing. With Forest Labo, it’s a nice change to leave from claustrophobic life with COVID … Let’s go to forests, guys.

If you find a problem in the site introduced in this post, the best contact address will be GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods.

https://morilab.amebaownd.com/

e-mail: morinokoe7@yahoo.co.jp


The city office which is in charge of this forest is

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North 北部公園緑地事務所

Yokohama Municipal Government Creative Environment Policy Bureau 横浜市環境創造局

Phone: 045-311-2016

FAX: 045-316-8420