Just a short post about the Kiku Matsuri (the Japanese Chrysanthemum Flower Festival). All over the place we were seeing stalls of these amazing flowers and wondered what they were in aid of. We first saw them at a temple near the Imperial Palace gardens, then again outside a local government building. There were some halfway up the hill on Enoshima island, and this weekend we saw more at temples in the Kamakura area. After this floral abundance, I did some research into the flowers, spurred on by the vast knowledge of the old man I met at one of the stalls.
The kiku was brought to Japan from China, and over hundreds of years it has been improved upon and developed by dedicated gardeners. The flower became very popular, particularly with the Japanese royal family who incorporated the chrysanthemum into their family crest. You can see this ‘mon’ decorating the doors of temples all over the city, and it always reminds me of the Chinese film Curse of the Golden Flower where the Empress embroiders a golden chrysanthemum onto thousands of scarves as gifts for the soldiers who, with her son, lead a rebellion against her evil husband. (It’s an excellent film - if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it!)
The Kiku Matsuri usually happens around mid-November, though we’ve been seeing examples of local competitions for weeks. There are many different varieties of the Kiku, and for the competition, each type must be grown in a certain way and to a strict specification. The most popular type of Kiku we saw was the atsumono type, which has a single flower at the end of each stem. This is produced by ‘disbudding’ and removing all other flower buds as it grows, so that on stem may produce only one flower. In the competition, the atsumono type is presented as a trio, with each flower at exactly the same height as its companions. At the base, it looked as if the three stems had sprung from one origin, but on reflection I concluded that the three stems had probably grown separately and later been bound together for a more appealing base. The head of the flower is large, spanning up to 20cm across. The three flowers are said to act as a balance to each other, and according the Chinese belief, each has a different meaning - heaven, earth, and human. All the elements are important and must be equal, which is why the kiku is grown so the flowers are all of the same height. At the display near my local government building, I met a volunteer who was watching over the flowers who told me much information about them. I can’t quite remember the exact height, but I think he said that for the atsumono kiku, entries must be between 100 and 120 cm tall.
He was such a lovely gentleman, speaking excellent English and being very knowledgeable on his subject. At 71 years old, he told me that he now devotes much of his time to growing the beautiful flowers – but it’s no walk in the park. He claimed that “Raising a beautiful kiku is more difficult than raising my children! When your child is hungry, they ask for food. Or when they are thirsty, they ask for water. But with a kiku, they cannot tell you what they want, so you have to guess, and know what they will need!” He showed us the winning entry of that kiku matsuri – a stunning atsumono variety, its petals thick and dense, a perfect snowy white.
My favourite variety is the kudamono kiku, which is known in the west as the ‘spider chrysanthemum’. The petals of this type are long and thin, with shorter petals and the top that increase in length as they get nearer the stem, fanning out like a lions mane. Smaller than the atsumono variety, they span 15cm across the head. I particularly liked the multi-coloured ones, with colours bleeding into each other from the centre outwards. (Photo below)
The cascading style kiku were also stunning, particularly the kengaizukuri, meaning ‘overhanging cliff form’. According to a helpful article I found: In this case a single plant is trained onto a flat, slightly arching bamboo lattice structure varying in size, but typically two meter long, pointed at one end and swelling to a meter across at the centre. The entire lattice is positioned so that it dips on the pointed end, creating the cascading effect. I also saw many examples of the bonsai forms, which were very cute and had obviously had a lot of hard work put into them.
While my knowledge of flowers is pretty limited, I found the kiku a wonderful research subject and, of course, a visual joy. As we are slap bang in the middle of November, I’m looking forward to seeing more of the lovely Japanese chrysanthemums on my travels around Tokyo. If you want to learn more about the Kiku きく, visit this website that explains pretty much everything you could want to know about them: http://botanyboy.org/a-japanese-chyrsanthemum-flower-festival-kiku-matsuri/
Sayonara for now!
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