Daylilies, and the Art of Paying Attention

Shortly after we moved into Matsu House two years ago, I discovered a mysterious plant in our garden. Its leaves looked the same as irises, and its flowers like lilies, but with five or so buds on each stalk. There were lots of them, so I cut one and brought it into the house. To my surprise, by the next morning, the flower had faded, but a second bud was starting to open. I observed the flower, fascinated, over the course of several days, until all the buds had opened and faded, one by one.

I looked up the flower in my book of Hokkaido wildflowers. It’s called Ezo-kanzo, or Nikkokisuge when it is part of a flower arrangement for tea ceremony. I realized that it was the same flower we had seen covering an entire hillside on Rebun island several years previously.

See all those yellow bits?

I watched for it in eager anticipation at the end of May the next year, and it became one of my favorite flowers to display in my tea room.

In June this year, I said goodbye to my garden as we headed to the US for two months of home assignment. One evening at a friend’s house, while touring his garden, I saw familiar looking leaves and seed-pods. I turned to Keith. “Those look like…”

“Those are Daylilies,” our friend explained.

“Daylilies,” I repeated. “Because they bloom only for a day, and then the next bud blooms?”

“Exactly,” he confirmed.

It turns out I had seen Nikkokisuge flowers, which I now know to call Daylilies, before I ever went to Japan. I went to Boston, and found them blooming by roadsides in the suburbs. Then I went to North Dakota, and found them in the garden of almost every house, including the house where Keith grew up. They thrive even with winters colder than Sapporo’s, it seems, and they come in colors other than the orange-yellow variety native to Hokkaido.

In Southborough, Massachusetts 

In the garden at Keith's parents' house, after a rain storm

I had seen Daylilies, but I never noticed them. How many other lovely things am I missing because I’m not paying attention?

Parable of the Apple Trees

There is an apple tree in the backyard of the house where Keith grew up in North Dakota. He tells me that it’s about 20 years old, rarely pruned or cared for, allowed to grow wild.

Defying the wisdom that says pruning will make a tree bear more fruit, its branches are so loaded with ripening apples that they nearly touch the ground. No pesticides or fertilizers have touched this tree, but not an insect in sight.

How beautiful it must have looked in the spring, covered with pinky white blossoms! Even now, pale red of ripening fruit bursts against a backdrop of vibrant sage green leaves.

Apple growing in Japan, on the other hand, is an arduous process. Each apple is covered with a mesh bag to protect it from insects, and carefully turned to ensure even ripening. Thinned to only a few apples per branch, each large, shapely apple is intensely sweet with a perfect crunch.

Our apple tree in Ishikari is a spindly little thing, currently experiencing its second summer. Who knows when we will eat its fruit? We’re told it will take five, maybe seven years. We watched nervously this spring as one branch came close to breaking in the strong wind. Insects plague our poor tree, and torrential rains produce orange spots on its leaves.

Our tree, just starting to put out leaves this spring. It looked lonely, so we gave it some daffodils and shibazakura (moss phlox) to keep it company.

North Dakota apples, crisp and tart, can be had for free, in large quantities. In this town, even if you don’t have a tree yourself, surely you know someone who does. Japanese apples often cost more than 100 yen (about a dollar) each, even when they are in season. While in North Dakota or Washington, a person might eat apples every day, in Japan they are a special treat, to be eaten only when someone gives you one as a gift. Keith doesn’t like me to buy them, because he can’t stomach paying for something which has always been free.

I gaze longingly at the apples on this overgrown tree. If only our little tree could grow up to be like this one.

But it won’t. The climate, the soil, everything is different. Japanese apples are costly, hard-won, precious. But oh, are they ever sweet.