Japanese

My small garden is, if asked, of a western style. Yet we have an ume tree on a mound surrounded with natural stones. It holds small-sized ume fruit annually. The kind of the tree is Bungo-ume, a native species of the old Oita. I had asked a gardener to plant it when I remodeled my garden. It is this ume tree that first blooms in my garden at the end of the cold winter. The ume flower is tiny and blooms quietly in white, but it makes me delighted by feeling "Oh, the coldness will soon be over and spring is coming...." Many bush warblers will soon come back to the bamboo bush on my backyard, and some of them may come to my garden. They will sing very beautifully.

We have a funny expression from old times: "A fool trims a cherry tree, not prunes a ume tree." A careful inspection showed me that we might have smaller number of buds this time. The ume tree held many fruits during our two-month travel to the US last summer. It seems me that I had missed the trimming chance and did it in autumn. I might have pruned the bud-twigs, which were already holding embryo buds inside of them. Smaller number of flower means smaller product of the fruit from which I make pickled ume fruits every year. It is really vexing! I have to watch the proper timing to prune the twigs in order to get abundant flower and fruit in the next season.
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