The most romantic flower gardens in the world...

Husband plants thousands of pink blooms so people would come to see them and spend time with his blind wife so she didn't feel lonely. Toshiyuki Kuroki and his wife Yasuko had been married for 30 years when she began to have trouble with her sight. Within a week Mrs Kuroki, from Miyazaki Prefecture, had gone blind, after suffering complications from her diabetes. Mr Kuroki, a dairy farmer, had to watch on helplessly as his wife became depressed and withdrawn from the world. But he struck on the idea of creating a garden so beautiful that people would come to visit it and keep her company.

A husband in Japan has spent a decade creating a landscape of pink blooms to cheer up his wife after she went blind. Toshiyuki Kuroki and his wife Yasuko, from Miyazaki Prefecture, had been married for 30 years when Mrs Kuroki began having problems with her sight. Within a week, she had gone blind, suffering from complications relating to her diabetes. To the pair of dairy farmers, who had woken early every morning to look after their herd of 60 cows, her loss of sight was devastating.

They had led a difficult but rewarding life, also raising their two children, and had planned to celebrate their coming retirement with a massive tour around their country.
Mr and Mrs Kuroki were heartbroken that all their plans now seemed impossible. Mrs Kuroki shut herself away from the world and Mr Kuroki was forced to watch on, helpless, as his wife sunk into a deep depression.

That was until one day, Mr Kuroki noticed passersby admiring their small garden, which was filled with bright pink Shibazakura flowers, also known as moss phlox.

Shibazakura is a flower that grows thickly, covering the ground like a lawn. The shape of its pretty flower petals looks like that of sakura (cherry blossoms) and it comes in a variety of colors including different shades of pink, white, and light purple, with some petals having striped patterns.

He thought that if he planted more blooms, more people would come to see them and would help to keep his lonely wife company.
And so he quit his dairy farm and started work on creating a carpet of the pink flowers, surrounding their house and creating a striking and beautiful landscape.
He spent two years creating the foundation for the garden, reported RocketNews24, chopping down trees and caring for the fledgeling plants.

Now, more than a decade after the first seeds were planted, the garden in Shintomi Town is open to the public and attracts more than 7,000 visitors every year.
Throughout March and April, when the flowers are in full bloom, Mrs Kuroki has countless people to talk to and put a smile back on her face.
And visitors can also tour the old cow sheds, where they can hear more about the flowers and about the touching love story that brought the garden into being.
Source - HERE

The Shibazakura Festival is one of the most unique and colourful festivals on the Hokkaido flower calendar. Winding paths lead you across a surreal pink and purple hillside overlooking Takinoue town. Every year from early May to early June, Takinoue Park is covered with a carpet of Shibazakura which started from the equivalent of a single tangerine box filled with seedlings. These flowers have spread and grown every year and now cover an area of 100,000 square meters.

Image Source HERE

Shibazakura ~ Takinoue Park 

The park began in 1956 with a “mandarin orange box full” of moss phlox seeds. More and more flowers were planted each year until they filled a 100,000m2 area. The beautiful carpet of flowers covers the hillsides for around a month. As well as being a beautiful bright pink, they fill the park with a sweet scent, drawing you into a dreamlike world. 

May 1 - early June

The Shibazakura (Pink Moss) Festival 

The backside of the Daisetsuzan Mountain Range offers its pointy snow-covered peaks as a backdrop and tulips adorn the wide gently-sloped paths on your journey across the hill.

In the Ainu language, the Takinoue area is called Ponkamuikotan which roughly translates to "Village of the Small Gods." The name Takinoue, which literally means "Above the Waterfall," originates from the first Japanese settlers who founded the city upstream from a waterfall.
Hokkaido Ainu is the sole survivor of the Ainu languages. It is spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Ainu has no generally accepted genealogical relationship to any other language family.

How beautiful...This Ponkamuikotan reminds me of Calageata in which (first draft of book) Bea travelled through a waterfall to visit. In this special place, purple flowers are abundant and it is the home of ethereal beings called the Sindria.  

Moss Garden, Saiho-Ji Temple [Kyoto, Japan] ~ Infrared photography

An interesting theory ~ (used inspiration for book - Calageata and Well of Souls)

Purple Earth hypothesis is an astrobiological hypothesis that life forms of early Earth were retinal-based rather than chlorophyll-based thus making Earth appear purple rather than green. An example of a retinal-based organism today is the photosynthetic microbes called halobacteria.

 Early Earth

Furano City, just south of Zerubu Hill above, is where tourists go to get their lavender fix. Even though the lavender blooming season is relatively short—just July and August—this city is very popular that there are more than one million visitors a year. This violet garden spreads out in every direction. Aside from lavenders, there are also cosmos and dahlia. 

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Flower Soul
Love and light,

Trace

xoxo