Flowers Year Round in Fukushima City–MARCH 2018

The flowers don’t start to bloom in Fukushima City until March, really. The first to bloom is the plum blossom. I was watching it in mid and late February and it began to bud (very slowly)  but didn’t look picture-worthy until March:

Then later in the month:

beginnings of cherry blossoms (buds)

The above three photos are from Shinhama Park.

Magnolias…I think. I might be wrong.

Flowers Year Round in Fukushima City–February 2018

These photos are from possibly the coldest month of the year in Fukushima City (or at least it feels like it because winter has been dragging on for so long.) As you’ve seen from the two previous posts, Fukushima City DOES get snow in winter. Not as much as some other parts of Japan (further north, further west places), but more snow than places down south like Tokyo. Our snow here is pretty manageable, I guess. But it can destroy the trees. Thus, instead of flowers (which are not found much deep in winter,) I want to show you the trees during winter because it’s interesting how Japanese people protect them from the snow.

This is in the grounds of a local school. The coverings on the tree are beautiful, but their primary purpose is to protect the tree if there is a heavy snowfall. (There is usually is at least once a year–or more.)

According to my knowledge (and I’m no expert,) this is a very traditional way of protecting the trees. It’s so lovely, in my opinion.

This, I believe, is a home. I guess the bamboo pole helps the tree keep its shape in case the snow should be so heavy as to weigh down the branches. (And just a few short years ago–2015? we had a HUGE dump of heavy snow that was destroying the roofs of bicycles sheds, carports and so on.) These tree protections can be seen all over Tohoku (northern part of Honshu) in winter and I think they are really beautiful.