This week’s bloom is the Japanese Anemone - pretty straightforward, right? It’s an anemone, and it’s Japanese, right? WRONG. Wrong, my friends. Originally, this guy was about as Japanese as Scarlett Johansson in the live-action remake of Ghost In The Shell (ie, not at all). The Japanese Anemone, or hupehensis, is actually native to the eastern provence of Hupeth in China. CHINA. Japan claimed it for its own when they started making it a feature of their iconic ornamental gardens. Anyway let’s move on before the allusions with other real life, much more politically sensitive power-grabs in that part of the world begin to spring to mind…
Flowers! That’s what we’re here to talk about. The most beautiful ones ideally, and the Japanese anemone is certainly up there, in particular the ‘Hadspen Abundance’ variety. Discovered at a country house in Somerset in the early eighties, it’s distinctive for its shimmering, two-tone petals: dark pink and baby pink set against the rich, dark green of its foliage. There’s loads of great varieties to be honest (check out the ‘Bressingham Glow,’ another favourite), and what’s more they flower for a looooong time. From early August right up to the end of October, which is a godsend for, say, a website that features different flowers on a weekly basis and ideally tries to make them seasonally-relevant…
We covered the symbolism of the anemone in an earlier, more general edition of FOTW, but as we’re increasingly preoccupied with the uncertainty - and downright terror - about vast changes on the horizon (you know what I’m talking about) it might be nice to take stock of a bunch of anemones - they supposedly offer protection against approaching evil, whilst also signalling excitement for the future.
