My Garden: Yokohama’s Green Up Plan and management of neighborhoods environment 3

 

The project for Western Nakagawa is 90% funded by the City of Yokohama for FY 2022-2024. For three years, the money from Green Tax they received was about 96 thousand dollars. Wow. With this money, people of Western Nakagawa formed Nakagawa Group for Green, Water and History 中川緑と水と歴史をつなぐ会 (NGWH) overhauled shrubberies along commuter pedestrian roads in the area starting from Nakagawa Station. They also developed “garden” in the bank of Hayabuchi River 早淵川. This garden, named HRG (Hayabuchi-Robaya Garden早淵-老馬谷ガーデン), was first created in 2017 at the time of the National Urban Greenery Fair for Yokohama (; my post on March 31, 2017). The objective of the project this time has been to brush-up HRG after 5 years of its inauguration, and gentrify the route connecting Nakagawa Station and the garden. The target is, hopefully, with Green-up booster money, the commuter routes achieve certain degree of autonomous maintenance system, supported by the locals who live and own their sweet home in Western Nakagawa. As this is the final year of the project, it is too early to evaluate whether their target is met, I think. Anyway, let me introduce you to what their work looks like at this moment.

A member of
the Nakagawa Group for Green, Water and History

We started our tour from the Community Center for Western Nakagawa, near Nakagawa Station. It was still warm October afternoon. Around the Center, there were lots of lots of kids engaging in afterschool activities. I thought it was a promising sign of the community in this extremely aging nation. The town had potential for sustainable development for their greenery in the long run, hadn’t it? In front of the Center is a bamboo forest for Karasuyama Park, which is maintained by the City and Park volunteers. The basic design of the commuter route was done when the place was developed in the 1970s as a part of Kohoku New Town. The area around Community Center is public land so that the City’s engagement must have been continuous from the beginning. It had a nice atmosphere with well-maintained greens. Yeah, moms and dads should be relaxed for their kids to spend their afterschool there. The east of the Center and the Park was a 4-lane car road, and the north was condos. These two directions are in public domain. The responsibility of maintenance is mainly bore by the City and UR (Urban Renaissance Agency, a semi-public institution for housing in Japanese cities). The work by Nakagawa Group is in the west and south of the Community Center / Park.

Community Center for Western Nakagawa

Well-maintained environment around the Center

Beautiful bamboo forest

Basically, Japanese law defines land-tenure VERY important. Corollary of this stance is, the responsibility to manage one’s own property should be entirely taken by the landlord, even if that “lord” is an owner of small house. Many original owners of the detached houses to the west and south of the Center/Park bought and moved in the place roughly 30 years ago. Yeah, some household well transferred the ownership to the new generation. But not all of them may be so successful. It’s inevitable the appearance of the shrubberies on private land along the commuter road is getting untidy. One of the original intentions of the project was to treat this problem with subsidies from Green Tax. The members of NGWH include the neighborhood associations of the area. They asked and funded households along the main pedestrian route to plant unified ground cover, Sasa glabra 'Minor' to be exact, on their land and trim private shrubberies matching with the Sasa glabra. If the front yard space is paved as a car port, NGWH provided containers with plants suited for the color scheme of Sasa glabra. I thought it was a generous arrangement. Some pots may have costed USD 100 or so and it was funded by tax. Hmmmmmmm. Yes, by doing so if the security of the area is maintained for kids to grow up without worry, it should be worthwhile investment. I felt the determination of the people of NGWH to keep their hometown comfortable.

The private property replying to the request
for beautification of the corridor.

Publicly funded front yard of a private house

The above two photos have
a black plate telling it is funded by Green Tax.
Another sign is this one with the mascot “Happy”
for Yokohama’s Green-up Program.
Oh, by the way, in Japanese, leaves are called “Happa.”
So, it is Happy.

Even though, there are several patched with (apparently) invasive silver grasses. A person of NGWH said there is a problem in coordinating the intentions of original member of New Town and recent comers. He said “The new residents moved in after the New Town is fully established. They could take the trimmed shrubberies for granted. Sometimes they do not have an idea of gardening …”

The front is work done by NGWH people.
The background along the wall is
under the jurisdiction of the landlord
living above the stone wall.

I recalled a murmur of a landlady in London where I lived long ago … “Naomi, telling you the truth, I wonder how Japanese people garden their home in Japan. Many Japanese expats do not care the maintenance of their rented home. The property could end up with a very untidy garden after they leave. Because of this, some people do not like to have a Japanese tenant for their property …” Er, well, come to think of it, many urban Japanese, especially in their 50s and younger, may not have an experience to take care of private garden. Many of them live in condos whose garden space is extremely limited. You just glance at the aerial scenery of Tokyo from the airplane window when you take off from Haneda Airport. It’s a vast expanse of continuous houses and buildings sticking together without cushions of greenery. The other day, I met a lady who was excited to see red persimmons dangling from a tree in our garden for autumn. “Naomi, I didn’t know persimmons grew in this way! I’ve known them only in supermarket.” For her, taking care of the home garden should be a VERY new thing. The challenge for NGWH is to persuade such new people to maintain neat shrubberies of their property. Such tasks require commitment. It could be difficult for some to see the point of NGWH activities, I guess …

Keeping a garden is always a task requiring dedication.

One solution to such problem is involving the PTA of Nakagawa Nishi Junior High. The campus sits in the center of NGWH’s project area. It’s big. The corridor surrounding the School is certain length. If that part of pedestrian road could keep the greenery, it can affect the morale of the community. From parents’ point of view, maintaining a nice environment around the school of their kids is surely good for education. Win-win! Currently, the dads’ club of Nakagawa Nishi Junior High PTA engages in gardening for a strip of land of 1m-or-so wide surrounding the campus. They plant several shrubs to renovate the place. It’s only their 3rd year, and the greens are still very tiny. Whether this collaboration is successful will be seen in another 3 years’ time, I suppose.

Dads’ work for Junior High

Another focal point of NGWH’s project is the Garden along Hayabuchi River, HRG. Looking the structure of the land allocated for HRG, I think the place was intentionally made “vacant” by the original planner of the New Town for flood control of the River. The bank of Hayabuchi River at that point is heavily concreted probably after heavy dredging. Now it looks like an artificial canal, rather than a natural river. As Tsurumi River system was ferocious when it flooded (; my post on September 20, 2020), such treatment of its tributaries would be inevitable, especially when the area is developed for housing. Immediately above the river runs a commuter road, then the space for HRG. The detached houses are standing higher up on retaining wall above HRG. NGWH people try to gentrify such no-man’s land with flowers, lovely shrubs and climbers for the wall. Their intention is to make the flood controlling space for a strolling path at least the weather is fine and the river is OK.

A road running immediately along Hayabuchi River

People want to make this space an established garden.

I think this is fun!

As the HRG garden started in 2017, this is their 8th year. It seems to me, there is a long way to go to make the place at the level of environment surrounding the Community Center where we started our walk. Er, well, Karasuyama Park is about 40 years old with heavy involvement of public money. Comparing HRG with Karasuyama Park is cruel. But it is their final year using the resources from Green Tax. I guess there would be inevitable funding problems. Flowers are not cheap. NGWH people plan to raise post-Green Tax money asking donations through fund-raising activities. For that matter, the maintenance of commuter roads after the project is also expected by the home-owners whose property happens to be facing these routes. i.e. Persuading households would be a task of Neighborhood Associations for a long run, say for 40 years, if people of Nakagawa wants to make the result of the project like for the Community Center and Karasuyama Park ... can we call it sustainable?

To some extent, it is a natural conclusion for very strong concept of property rights in Japanese basically green-less cities. Within such legal framework, I think people in Western Nakagawa do extremely well. They are somehow preserving the original concept of housing development plan for Kohoku New Town, i.e. to stop unplanned housing sprawling in Megalopolis Tokyo. Otherwise, the former satoyama environment of north Yokohama could have become like green-less continuation of houses like 23 Wards in Tokyo. But in this rapidly aging society with shrinking population, can they keep going this way? The people I met from Nakagawa Group for Green, Water and History were all senior citizens, probably above 70. I don’t know how many young people are active in their project, especially at the planning and managing level. Unless young generation shares the same awareness as their grandpas and grandmas to make their community abundant in green, grandpas’ endeavor will die out together with them … Telling you the truth, the issue is more challenging for Yokohama’s Citizen Forest recently. I tell you the story soon (after a bit more relaxed topics). Please stay tuned.

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama

横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712

FAX: 045-550-4093 Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kohoku New Town: Yokohama’s Green Up Plan and management of neighborhoods environment 2

 

Kohoku New Town, approximately 2530 ha, was once typical traditional hills, valleys, farming communities and forests of Tama Hills. From downtown Yokohama, it’s in only 12km distance. Even from downtown Tokyo, it’s sitting within the 25km radius. There was no reason to leave rural forests as such especially during the high-growth era of Japanese economy, 1950-1970. In 1965 the then-mayor of the City of Yokohama, Socialist Kazuo Asukata, announced the development plan of the area as a part of post-war reconstruction design for the City. The northwest forests of the City, bordering with Kawasaki City, was designated as “Kohoku New Town” and polished as housing area which was a mixture of high-rise condos and detached houses. To make the place attractive, the government promised the area municipal underground services and a new route of Metropolitan Expressway. The reasoning for tons of public expenditure was “to stop unplanned housing sprawling in Megalopolis Tokyo.” I think the original intention of the planner was successfully met. Roughly demarcated area by Tokyu Den’entoshi Line and two lines of Yokohama Municipal Subway System is now a typical suburb of Tokyo with a nice Prefectural high school (Kawawa High 県立川和高校), strategically located good parks, and shopping centers of laid-back atmosphere. Yokohama-Aoba IC in the New Town serves as an interchange and exits from Metropolitan Expressway and Tomei Expressway, the two main arterial motor roads of Metropolis Tokyo.

There must have been a very high-level politics for Kohoku New Town during the early days of Japanese post-war period in the 1950s. The landlords of the place agreed to sell their property for the development, which was news, I guess. One of the landlords of the area was a descendant of Samurai who was famous in the 16th century Yamanashi Prefecture. He had really a VAST land of the area. After the deal, the samurai offspring became VERY rich and concluded his life as an owner of a small and cute flower shop in front of Tsunashima Station. He once said to his acquaintances, “Now I don’t have to work for all my life. But doing nothing is not good for my health. Flowers are pretty.” He did not have to care for profitability et al. Oh, so enviable life … Now there is no flower shop by his offsprings in Tsunashima. In any case, Kohoku New Town is one of the most affluent areas of Yokohama. Naturally, those who bought and developed the land want to keep it as such, I mean, “a rich place of the City of Yokohama.” The people thinking along this line include the City of Yokohama.

Kohoku New Town near Center-Minami Station

In 2024, Yokohama Green Up Plan started its 4th Five Year Plan. The third pillar of the plan is about gentrification of neighborhood whose budget for FY 2024 is 580 million yen (= USD 3.8 million, wow). The City funds neighborhood associations and Lovers groups for small gardens in the City to keep flowers and shrubberies orderly year around. The citizens maintaining flower beds not only for neighborhood gardens, but also for shrubberies along the city roads. A part of the budget is invested in Kohoku New Town. I’ve met Kohoku New Town people who are engaged in gentrification and maintenance of shrubberies of the public road. I talked with them and realized, although the level of politics would be smaller than that for the original development of New Town, maintenance of the New area is the result of political endeavor in neighborhood activities. If you’re interested in such things in Tokyo’s suburbs, please read on.

Well-maintained pedestrian road in Kohoku New Town

Nakagawa Station is a subway stop for both Blue and Green Lines of Yokohama Municipal Subway. To the northwest is Azamino Station of Tokyu Den’en-toshi Line, and to the southeast is Center-Kita (North) Station of the Subway. The area around Nakagawa Station is sitting pretty in Kohoku New Town, surrounded by lots of amenities. Unlike Center-kita or Center-Minami (South) stations, the area for Nakagawa Station is more of detached houses, with some condos standing. South of the Station is Yamazaki Park, one of the strategically placed municipal Parks for Kohoku New Town. The tributary of Tsurumi River, called Hayabuchi River, goes from the northwest to the southeast of the town. A road running along Hayabuchi River 早淵川 which is now meandering in housing areas was a part of Oyama Street 大山街道 (; my post March 17, 2017). On that route there is a tiny but old shrine called Roba-Kajiyama Fudoh 老馬鍛冶山不動尊. In short, Nakagawa Town is a part of Kohoku New Town, but preserves some remnants of old rural community of Tama Hills.

Hayabuchi River

Former Oyama Street, aka Route 246

Roba-Kajiyama Fudoh

Eastern half of Nakagawa Town is nearer to Center-Kita Station, a commuter hub of the area. The area has Nakagawa Hachimanyama Park 中川八幡山公園 so that amenity-wise Eastern Nakagawa is somehow self-sufficient for gentrification or such matters. Western Nakagawa around Nakagawa Nishi Junior High is nearer to arterial Route 246, but was a bit too “ordinary” suburb to claim fashionable Kohoku New Town. So, the locals of Western Nakagawa created Non-Profit Organization, “Nakagawa Group for Green, Water and History,” and from 2022 begun 3-year gentrification project of their neighborhood, funded by 10% local donations and roughly 90% from Yokohama Green Up Plan. FY 2024 is the final year for them to expect municipal budgetary help. I happened to have a chance to be introduced to almost a final touch of their project. It’s basically a volunteer-driven works with public help. In this framework what the City is doing is the same for Niiiharu Lovers: budgetary help with occasional technical consulting. Though unlike forest, it’s a matter of commuter roads in rows of houses. I thought there could be a peculiar political issue to make the endeavor successful. Next week, I report you what I’ve found there. Please stay tuned.

Nakagawa Nishi Junior High

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093 

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

On Flower Beds: Yokohama’s Green Up Plan and management of neighborhoods environment 1

 

A typical scenery of suburbia in metropolis Tokyo: rows of detached houses with small garden in which some plantings are facing a commuter road. Hopefully all are neatly maintained with seasonal colors. Now in November maybe there will be colored leaves of dwarf maples or white Alyssum. OK. In Japan the right of land holding is strong. A landlord can do whatever s/he wants to do with the land as long as it is not illegal. (Needless to say, cooking illegal drugs or bombs is not allowed wherever.) The downside of this arrangement is, the responsibility of maintaining presentable scenery of suburbia is entirely on the shoulder of landlords. Those beautiful red colors of autumn leaves in neighbors’ garden were bought and tended by the house owner’s family.

If you garden, you know it is not an easy task. For beautiful hedges of your sweet home, you have to invest money and time. With a courtesy of Amazon Japan, we can purchase a seedling of box tree for approximately 6000 yen. For fertilizer, please make a budget of at least 1000 yen for 1L. You need garden scissors, trowel, gloves, etc. etc. You love gardening, fine. But if you’re old enough for having difficulty kneeling down to work for a flower bed, you’ll face a problem. If the space is facing a commuter road, and there are lots of people who do not like a messed-up and abandoned garden along a road for their daily lives, your problem will be bigger. You could hear complaints from your neighbors about your “inability for keeping the garden tidy.” You may be robust enough to present gorgeous roses now, but can you do it in 20 years’ time? Is your roadside garden able to be pretty for ages? Are you sure? Can you deal with the invasion of silver grass (; my post last week) in 2027?

Probably, it’s not a problem only for Yokohama. Rise and fall of anything, even if it is about sleepy suburbs and their shrubbery, is inevitable in the end. And so, the issue can be the matter of local politics. When the topic is about neat rows of tulips per se, it would be a heart-warming discussion in a neighborhood meeting. But planting cute flowers could be for preventing burglary and robbery. The way to plant and maintain tulips in a road-facing flower bed could be a dead-serious matter. Also, keeping a gentrified environment may contribute to property values and business opportunities in a town. That’s the reason sometimes local governments become proactive in helping homeowners to clean up private front gardens. Actually, the City of Yokohama has such a system.

Do you remember in my post long ago (April 8, 2016) I told you about Green Tax and Yokohama Green Up Plan? The plan was started in 2009, and 2024 is the start of the 4th Five Year Plan of Green Up. The program has three pillars. One is to support people of Yokohama actively engaging in local production for local consumption, and thus contributing to the achievement of SDGs. (I hope I can post about Yokohama’s vegetable soon.) Another is to support citizens maintaining and managing natural spaces such as forests within Yokohama. (I will report to you the up-to-date status of this pillar before long.) The third pillar is about gentrification of neighborhood whose budget for FY 2024 is 580 million yen (wow). The City funds neighborhood associations and Lovers groups for small gardens in the City to keep flowers and shrubberies orderly year around. The citizens maintaining flower beds not only for neighborhood gardens, but also for shrubberies along the city roads.

In Japan, who’s responsible for managing public roads depend on the “landlord” of a road. It would be national, prefectural, and of city / town. National or prefectural offices can be remote for ordinary citizens, especially regarding commuter roads. Hence, national routes sometimes can be the most dilapidated road in the area, especially in countryside municipalities. In contrast, city or town roads normally have citizen volunteers who engage in daily management for flower beds along the road. Yokohama’s Green Up plan has budgets to support activities of volunteers who brush up roadside flower beds. The other day, I had a chance to visit one site that has additional funding to manage such gardens along their neighborhood routes. It’s a project of several neighborhood volunteer associations who collaborated to tidy up pedestrian routes meandering the area of detached houses. Next week, I’ll report to you about my adventure in a suburb of Yokohama. You may not be aware of such ordinary scenery. But there is a story. Please stay tuned 😊

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Egoist! Chinese silver grass and us

 

In Japanese psyche, Chinese silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis) is closely related with autumn. I guess some of you have seen the plant depicted in Japanese paintings, including Ukiyoe. The grass is important for decorations of seasonal festivals, such as Moon Viewing Festival. Hakone Sengokubara National Treasure site 箱根仙石原 is famous for its swinging silver grass field in fall (: my post on October 29, and November 5, 2021). In autumn, its green sword-like leaves turn into light brown with their fluffy ears. The vegetable forms large colony and tends to cover vast sunny space. So, in autumn, en masse they carelessly sway as wind blows. If setting sun cast autumnal light over them, it’s perfect scenery for feeling quiet and chilly dawn of the season. Mmmmmmmmm … meditative.

Chinese silver grasses in Sengokubara

Well, so it is, if we just admire them from a window. When we have to think about it in terms of environmental management, it’s a different matter. As Americans know, it can be invasive species and wreck a havoc for indigenous ecology. In Japan, as long as the land is dry and has full sunshine, the grass can form massive cluster whose uber-robust rhizome spreads in shallow topsoil. It is a species dominating a field at the final stage of plant succession. After establishing their kingdom, the grass field will gradually turn into a dry forest, first by invasion of drought-resistant trees like red pines. Unless artificially (oh, yes) controlling their dominance over the field, smaller wild vegetations such as violets et al cannot find a space. Moreover, if the march of silver grass is entering a wet land, such as Sengokubara, it’s a signal for the end of bogs. The plants that love soggy soil will be exterminated. If we want to preserve the ecosystem of swamp, Chinese silver grass can certainly be invasive species.

Sengokubara whose vegetation varies according to its undulation.
 When we see the site from outside,
the place looks like flat.
Nope.
Once we enter the national treasure site,
it has many tiny ups and downs
and so the varying availability of water
for living things on the ground.

To maintain the national treasure site of Sengokubara wetland, Hakone Town officially burns off the field once a year in the middle of March. The main target of this annual event is silver grass. Segokubara has three kinds of environment in terms of grasses. The driest part is for silver grass. The soil which is along streams where its not boggy but with enough moisuture is for common reed. The bog or shallow ponds are for Typha latifolia. When people burning the field, they first mow the border area of the field to make a fire buffer, then ignite fire on the silver grasses immediately inside of the firebreak. By doing so, aridification of marsh can be stopped. After the burning, spring ephemeral can come out in Sengokubara (; my post on May 12, 2023). The area near water streams will welcome common reed that can somehow stop the advance of silver grass.

The photo is taken 1 month after the burning.
Shoots of common reed are thriving along the artificial waterway.

Young spring leaves of Cirsium sieboldii,
a Japanese endemic thistle loving bogs.
It can come out only after the burning.

Viola hirtipes, the largest violet in Japan,
which also comes out after the burning in Sengokubara.

Their ability to suffocate the other plants over the land is not only alarming for marshes. They can also dominate small land patches of suburbs. Their hard rhizome causes headaches for gardeners or people who maintain walking paths in our neighborhood. The best way to control their invasion is digging them out while they are still young. The saving grace is silver grass takes time to be a large cluster. Even when they are seedlings, it’s hard to pull their root out, but definitely easier than dealing with established grass. Our battle with the wild grass continues ad infinitum …

For the silver grass to reach this size,
it must have taken enough time …
and I guess
the landlord gave it up at certain point of time.

Asphalt? What is asphalt?

Along a city road.
The City Office of Yokohama is supposed to
 be responsible for the management
of shrubbery for such road.
It seems to me the Office cannot keep pace
 with the advancement of grass …
 more to it next week.

From silver grass’ point of view, all of this fuss would be pure egoism of humans … One time we admire them as a cultural icon. Then for another occasion, we regard them as nuisance. Anthropocene … Next week, I will tell you about one neighborhood’s endeavor to minimize the nuisance of wild grass, in the framework of Yokohama’s green policy. Please stay tuned. 😊

I took this photo for one of the urban river of Yokohama.
Silver grass is supposed to love dry land,
but no matter here …
Tough guys.

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/