The first was taken from Japan’s Ashikaga Flower Park, where one of the world’s oldest-living wisteria vines still grows (said to be planted around 1870). The sheer size of the vine has turned it into a major tourist attraction: about 1,990 square meters (or about half an acre). In fact, a matrix of steel supports was erected to keep the bulk of the vine from dropping to the ground, as well as to prop up the branches of that poor distant tree it’s hanging from.
Wisteria is a tremendously-hardy ornamental flowering vine, cultivated for about 2,000 years in China, Korea, and Japan before it was introduced to the United States (and other countries) around the 1830s. Unsurprisingly, it’s a plant that features heavily in Buddhism and Chinese/Korean/Japanese literary tradition. Its resilience and longevity has made it a motif of enduring love in Japanese art and literature, or more famously, endurance in the face of heartache. Shin Buddhism has also adopted it as a symbol of humility, wisdom, and reflection because of the way the seemingly never-ending vine supplely twines across trees, trellises, and even entire groves, always adapting to the lay of the land. (Not to mention that once rooted, it has the determination to stay there for the viewing pleasure of multiple generations.)
Unfortunately, the wisteria’s introduction to the West has attached less benign meanings to it: most notably qualities like obsessiveness, choking passion, and runaway spontaneity. Credit Victorian Britain for not enjoying a lovely plant that grows like, well, the grandfather of all invasive weeds.
The second photo was taken from a more generic, temperate garden with a healthy share of hydrangea bushes. (I couldn’t find the exact location though, or the name of the photographer. Still, it’s a quaint little shot.)
Hydrangea is a tall, woody ornamental flowering plant that also has its roots in Japan. Its English name though is very telling: derived from the Greek cognates “hydor” (meaning ‘water’) and “angos” (meaning vessel or jar), which when strung together gives it the nickname ‘water vessel’. This is because hydrangeas have flowers that (individually) are shaped a bit like cups… and they’re incredibly thirsty plants, requiring liberal amounts of water to keep those pompom-shaped clusters in peak condition. In a sweltering summer, the color actually starts to leech out of their petals until they approach washed-out gray.
In Japan, this lavish flower has come to symbolize vanity and boastfulness, but also sincere gratitude for being understood (which makes it a fitting bouquet for apologies, at least according to one Japanese legend). On being imported to the West, this flower acquired still more ambivalent meanings. The cheerful Victorian British designated blue-purple-white hydrangeas as symbols of frigidity, even heartlessness. But nowadays, incongruously, it’s seen as motif of heartfelt emotions—both positive and negative--, and has even become a popular fourth wedding anniversary gift between couples, returning in a way to the original Japanese message of ‘thanks for understanding me, and sorry about the trouble so far’.
Why this treatise on flower symbolism? Because a few people have already finished reading that last NSFW one-shot starring Ezarel, and I wanted to explain why I chose hydrangeas and wisteria to adorn the (non-canon) garden setting. It’s not just because they’re pretty; if there’s ever a pair of flowers that can symbolize Ezarel (and his screwy relationship with the prankster! Guardian), then it’s these storied Japanese garden fixtures.
Also, I owe an apology to some gentle souls for that fake honey drizzler catalog ad. Please enjoy the hydrangeas. ^_^
