Yoseue (group planting) of pine, bamboo, and plum is good for New Year’s decoration. Many women enjoyed the experience of Yoseue at Sakuya Kobo in Takamatsu’s Kokubunji town. Yusuke Hashimoto offers Japanese and Western-style Yoseue.

Pleasure of Japanese and Western-style

The difference of Japanese and Western-style is the pot, plants and flowers except the main trees like pine, bamboo, and plum. He used a 5 centimeters’ pot for Japanese one and a 20 centimeters’ pot for Western. It is good to use the pheasant’s eye and the Japanese ardisia, and the pansy and the viola for Western. The pine, the bamboo, the plum, the nandina and the ornamental kale can be used for both styles. The height of plums needs to be fit the each pot. So the trees for Japanese should be smaller and ones for Western should be taller. It is also good to choose the white pram for Japanese and the red one for Western.

It has also difference in the way to plant. For Japanese-style, trees are planted in a shallow pot to run over it and add volume. On the contrary, for Western-style, it is good to plant trees deep in a pot for the stability.

The important point for Yoseue is the arrangement of each tree. Hashimoto says, “Yoseue is nearing completion when it is decided.” The direction of each branch can be determined by the place to decorate.

Treatment of each tree

Yoseue for the New Year will be created in the end of December. How do they adjust the most beautiful time of flowering of plum to coincide with the New Year? Hashimoto says, “During December, I grow it in an unheated room or outside and water once a day. If the prum’s bud is hard, you should move it in a heated room and it will bloom soon.”

The pine, bamboo, and plum can be used in the next year if you transplant it and continue to water. Here is a professional point of treatment of plums. When you cut a branch, do not cut it off and keep it to stay on its trunk. Then no buds come out from that part and the tree can keep the beautiful shape.

Tomoyo Tsumura, a participant of this experience from Marugame city, says, “It was difficult for me to decide the arrangement of each tree. My eyes were opened that the direction of each branch can be determined by the place to decorate. I hope many good things will happen in the next year as the number of plum flowers.”

(By Shigeo Hano)