はじめまして、ガーデン デザイン ショップ 庭衆です。

こんにちは。

伊恵弐(Jenny)ともうします

日本に住むドイツのガーデンデザイナーです。
六月から庭衆に務めています。。。

オフィスは楽しくて働ける空間ですから、
時間がたつのはsuper-早い。
もう4ヶ月ここにいる気がしません。

私には日本語で文章を作るのはまだ難しいので、
英語で。。。すみません！

よろしくお願いします。

Hello,

I am Jenny, a German garden designer, who lives in Tokyo, Japan.
Since June I am working at the Garden Design Studio Niwashyu in Yoyogi.

The atmosphere in our office is very relaxed. Working together with my boss Hayano-San, Suda-San (both garden designers) and the architect Yoshino-San, is a lot of fun and I learn tons when I am around them.

Also, in Hayano-San's "super strict SPARTA Japanese school" (早野さんのsuper厳しいスパルタ日本語教室) ;-) I learn new Japanese words every day - like ジャンプ傘 - Jump-Kasa　 - an umbrella that opens automatically, when push the botton. Or 気難しいパソコン - in case of my laptop, when the keyboard refused to work for no good reason. Or 島国, Island-Country (Japan), a phrase that is the introduction to the answer to a lot of my questions about Japanese customs, history, gardens, society, everything...

I can't believe I have been here for nearly 4 months already. Time flies faster than a Shinkansen!

Our office:


Anyway,

I am here to write about our show garden at the Marunouchi garden show 2012!

This is actually the first garden show I help to prepare. In June, we thought about participating, and Suda-San handed in a design. The original plan was that I also submit one or we combine both of our plans, but working on our Real Japanese Garden project (more on that in another post), I was too 忙しい-isogashii (busy) to even think about a design. Maybe the next time...

In August, we received the acceptance letter from the show committee - yeay!
So the detailed planning phase began - plants, material, costs,...
In a balcony garden for a client in Tokyo, we used Sun catchers, colorful German garden accessories that catch the light and reflect it even on a dull day. They are not available in Japan, so we decided that the sun catchers should become our eye catchers...

Cazadores del Sol - Sun catcher:



The day before yesterday, we started working at 10pm in Marunouchi - a chic shopping and office area right next to Tokyo Station. Our garden is in a really good spot, directly next to the Marunouchi building and quite close to the station and the imperial palace.


http://goo.gl/maps/MBfGI

Everyone was excited to get the work started. Since the garden had to be build on a normal sidewalk, the constractors had build a frame, that only needed to be assembled on site. That saved us a lot of time and energy! We filled it up with styrofoam panels in some places - on the one hand we wouldn't have to fill up the entire space with soil, but also to support our centerpieces, the door frame and the door.

After assembling the frame, construction begins:



The door frame and door were fixed to the ground - since September/October is typhoon season, we put in some extra bolts, just in case...

Laying the stepping stones (飛石- tobi-ishi) was left to the pros:


Then came the plants - when I saw the first car, I thought: Too much!! We only have 5.5 x 1.5m - how should all of that fit in here. Then came a second truck with trees... And another with some filler plants... Our working area was confined - everything had to be stored and constructed inside the area marked with traffic cones. With all the plants on site, we couldn't even move around anymore. When we finally put the plants in the soil, we planted them really close together, much closer than any gardener would - after all, it's a show garden and the plants have to look abundant and as though they have always been here.
Before putting in the ground cover plants:



Before I forget it: This is our guard man - complete with hard hat, uniform and red star wars light saber - we had him only for our garden during the construction process.


If you don't know what the famous Japanese guardman do - watch this video:
http://youtu.be/2jvBqMpSHO4?t=13s

Hayano-San and Suda-San added some final touches to the show garden yesterday night, and today, all that was left for me and Yoshino-San to do was taking pictures of the final garden:












Garden team one and two:





Tomorrow, the jury will decide! Wish us luck!
We will let you know about the results...

Jenny