Tranquillity lies in the gardens of Japan
It is hardly a revelation to learn that a garden can make one calmer. Not the classic untended urban backyard, of course, product of the distracted working couple. The green hell of unmown lawn ('It's no-mow May you know. More wine?') and twisted, triffid-like shrubs shooting skyward, blotting out the sun and strangling rusty kids' bikes snared in their dark interiors. No, not that kind of garden, the one that would have Monty Don tearing out his cosmos in despair, but a Japanese one.
It turns out that a considered approach to gardening, one that favours a certain formality and artistry, is more useful in alleviating stress. Researchers at the universities of Nagasaki and Pittsburgh tested the heart rates of subjects exposed to the not
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The Sun
16 hours ago
- The Sun
The £5 Amazon buy Alan Titchmarsh says is the ‘only thing that really works' at stopping slugs attacking your plants
SLUGS are the bane of every gardener's life. But Britain's favourite gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh has one method that he swears by for combating the slimy slitherers. 3 3 Writing in County Life, the 76-year-old spoke about his lifelong battle with the garden pests - and his resistance to the idea that 'slugs are our friend'. The Gardening Club star says he favours copper rings that sit around the base of the plant. The copper rings are more expensive as they can be reused multiple times - they typically retail for between £25 and £30. However, those who are greenfingered on a budget can instead invest in copper tape - which works in the same fashion and is available for only £4.99 on Amazon for a 25-metre roll. Titchmarsh said: "The only things that have worked for me are those rings of copper that resemble a vicar's clerical collar and which can be pushed into the ground around individual plants to discourage the molluscs from coming any closer. "They are reputed (if kept clean) to impart a kind of electric shock to any slug or snail attempting to scale their dizzying height of 1in." How does copper tape work? The copper tape works by imparting an electrical charge that gives the slug a small static shock. The tape can be trimmed to size and wound around the lips of lower pots and planners - creating an uncrossable barrier. Other slug deterrent methods The veteran presenter has tried a number of other methods for tackling the slug menace over the years - with limited results. Titchmarsh says he long ago stopped using slug pellets, which cause the slugs to convulse but also pose a poisoning threat to hedgehods and birds. I'm a gardening expert and these are my top hacks to stop slugs taking over your garden as UK invasion worsens The CBE has also tried various products that create a sharp or uncomfortable texture for the slugs to crawl over. However, crushed eggshells, holly leaves, sharp grit, gravel and even sheep's wool were all 'at best, unreliable and more often than not totally ineffective', according to Titchmarsh. Coffee grounds are another foodstuff often touted as a slug repellent, but Titchmarsh says he doesn't drink enough of it - plus he prefers that his garden doesn't smell of Starbucks. That leaves hand-picking them off plants by hand in the evening, a time-intensive procedure that also requires gloves if you want to avoid slimy hands. Titchmarsh says he has had some sucess with pot feet, which only allow the more acrobatic slugs to gain access to your prized blooms. Gardeners could be forgiven for feeling confused about how best to combat slugs given the array of techniques floated for dealing with this in recent years. One gardening fan claimed that garlic helped to repel slugs and snails - even posting a recipe for a garlic spray. Another intriguing possibility suggested as a natural pest deterrent is foxgloves, whose purple flowers contain toxic compounds such as digitalis glycosides, which can be very harmful for slugs. Why having slugs in your garden is a good thing Yes, they chomp your precious plants, but having slugs in your garden should be celebrated. Rebecca Miller, Associate Editor for Fabulous, and novice gardener, believes we should work in harmony with slugs and not try to get rid of them altogether. "We've been conditioned as a society to believe we must have gardens with straight edges, short lawns with pretty stripes and perfect borders with flowers constantly blooming. But unruly hedgerows, abundance of tall wildflowers buzzing with insects, and bugs and slugs galore in flowerbeds is totally natural - and necessary. I understand that your plants might be very precious to you, but we need slugs and snails. They provide food for all sorts of mammals, birds, slow worms, earthworms, insects - and they are part of the natural balance. By removing them, we upset the ecosystem and can do a lot of harm - thrushes in particular thrive on them! It is said British Gardeners use some 650 billion slug pellets per year! Please find a natural alternative – the poison from slug pellets enters the food chain and can kill hedgehogs, who consider slugs and snails as a tasty treat. If you're truly desperate, consider using Diatomaceous Earth - it is a naturally occurring compound approved for organic use, that can be used for pest control. And while you're at it, challenge yourself to grow "sacrificial plants". Sacrificial planting, commonly known as trap cropping, is the deliberate act of growing plants to attract pests. Pick a slugs favourite vegetable or ornamental plant for them to nibble on, and they will leave your more precious plants alone."
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. 80 years on, are the dead being betrayed?
Today, the tranquility of this road dissecting the Okinawan jungle is broken only by occasional passing cars and wind rustling through the foliage. For centuries it was a well-worn bridleway in the town of Itoman, on the island's south-west coast. But 80 years ago, the clip of hooves gave way to the crackle of gunfire, when this sub-tropical Japanese island 1,000 miles south of Tokyo became the scene of the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. When the fighting ended three months later, 200,000 Japanese and Americans were dead, including an estimated 90,000 civilians – around a quarter of Okinawa's non-military population. Many died during the US invasion or from starvation; others killed themselves in groups on the orders of the Japanese military, huddling in caves before detonating grenades – an irreversible flight from the terror of the 'typhoon of steel' raging outside. Takamatsu Gushiken wonders if something similar happened to the owner of a bone fragment he has uncovered deep inside one of the caves, known locally as gama, that dot Okinawa's southern reaches. In some, Japanese soldiers laid in wait for the advancing Americans; in others, families – usually women and children – prayed for the guns to fall silent. 'I think it's from the hand of a young boy or girl,' says Gushiken, a 71-year-old volunteer 'bone hunter' who has spent decades scraping away at the hardened crust of Okinawa's cave floors in search of remains that would otherwise stay buried where their owners died. 'But it is impossible to say if they were killed or committed suicide.' When the battle ended, the corpses of civilians and men in uniform were scattered over the fields. For the survivors, their island now under US military occupation just weeks before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, life could only restart once they had attended to the dead. 'The first thing they did was collect the corpses,' Gushiken explains. 'There were lots of dead bodies, on the roads, in villages, even in the back yards of their own homes.' Watch the film 10:41 Some of the remains have been committed to the earth in perpetuity, buried beneath postwar housing complexes, businesses and other infrastructure, turning Okinawa's killing fields into countless unmarked graves. As the island prepares to mark 80 years since the end of the battle on 23 June, Gushiken refuses to abandon his mission to uncover as many remains as possible, identify them and return them to their families. Most of the remains of the estimated 188,140 Japanese killed in the battle have been collected and placed in the national cemetery on the island, according to the health ministry. But the government's DNA matching efforts have been painfully slow and inadequate. 'It's been 80 years, so it's very difficult to find remains … but they are still there,' says Gushiken, who recalls finding skulls encased in military helmets during childhood insect hunts in the mountains. 'And the bones are getting smaller and smaller.' The passage of time, and the chaotic circumstances surrounding the victims' deaths, mean only a few families will gain any sense of closure. The remains of about 1,400 people found on Okinawa – including hundreds uncovered by Gushiken and other volunteers – sit in storage for possible identification with DNA testing. But so far just six have been identified and returned to their families. Gushiken is motivated by more than a sense of duty towards the dead of Okinawa – military and civilian, Japanese and American, and, according to estimates, more than 3,500 Koreans who were forced to fight for Imperial Japan, then their country's colonial ruler. Standing at the edge of a field, he watches diggers remove white, coral-laced soil from a distant quarry. Here and in other locations, he says, Japan's government, with the support of the US, is engaging in an act of desecration against the unknown number of war dead whose remains have yet to be found, by using the soil where they fell as landfill for the use of a new generation of American soldiers. 'Instead, this should be a place where people can go and learn about how people died here,' Gushiken says. 'Where they can think about the meaning of war and peace, and pray for the dead.' On 1 April 1945, US troops landed on Okinawa during their push towards mainland Japan, beginning a battle that lasted until late June. About 12,000 Americans and more than 188,000 Japanese died. Hatsue Fukumine recalls seeing US planes fly towards her home on Tarama, a dot in the ocean west of the main Okinawan island. 'My mother was deaf and so couldn't hear the planes,' says Fukumine. 'I used to run over to her, gesture and grab her hand as we ran to the air raid shelters.' Tarama, home to a small Japanese garrison, was targeted by air raids and naval bombardment. 'There was practically nothing to bomb there,' says Fukumine, who moved to the main island in her teens to work in a pineapple canning factory. She gained her high school graduation certificate at 70 and, now 90, has spent the past decade hosting a weekly community radio show. By the time Fukumine had married and had three children, Okinawa was under US occupation, and would remain effectively ruled from Washington until 1972, two decades longer than the rest of Japan. But the US occupation did not end with Okinawa's return to Japanese control. Today it is a fortress, as host to more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan and about three-quarters of its military bases. Postwar geopolitics thrust the site of the last major battle of the Pacific war into its central role in present-day tensions, amid Chinese claims over disputed parts of the East and South China Seas, and the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea. And it is here, in the cobalt-blue seas of Japan's southernmost prefecture, that the US response to any emergency in the Taiwan strait will begin. While Okinawa's economic, educational and social development lagged behind the rest of Japan, huge swathes of land were taken over by the US military, as the island became a crucial support base – an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' – during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Today, the island occupies an uneasy place in the Japanese consciousness: holidaymakers flock there in search of sun and immersion in a culture that bears little resemblance to that of the mainland. For all its exotic attraction, this island of 1.4 million has higher levels of unemployment and poverty than anywhere else in Japan. It is a living study in cultural contrasts, from the ubiquitous tattoo parlours and bars catering to servicemen along Gate Street near Kadena, the biggest US air base in east Asia, to quiet villages whose architecture speaks to Okinawa's time as an independent kingdom, with close trading and cultural ties to China and south-east Asia until it was annexed by Japan in the late 19th century. The eight decades since the battle of Okinawa are also the story of two communities forced to live in proximity, sometimes with success, but often against a backdrop of resentment and suspicion. Those sentiments are at their most visceral in Ginowan, a densely populated city dominated by Futenma, a sprawling marine corps air base whose perimeter is all that divides its helicopters and tilt-rotor Osprey planes from schools, hospitals and homes. After the 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US servicemen, Tokyo and Washington agreed to reduce the US military footprint on Okinawa by closing Futenma and relocating its functions to a more remote location on the island's north-east coast. In addition, 9,000 US marines would be sent to Guam, Hawaii and other US territories. Construction of the new base, in the fishing village of Henoko, has been delayed by local opposition and a string of legal challenges. On a recent afternoon, barges dumped rubble into the bay – the foundations for an offshore runway – while a Japanese coast guard vessel played cat-and-mouse with protesters in canoes who had breached the site's floating barrier. The Henoko base is opposed by most islanders, who say it will destroy the marine environment – including one of the few remaining habitats of the dugong – and do little to reduce the US military footprint. It is not expected to be completed until at least 2036 – 40 years after Japan and the US agreed to build it. Political controversy aside, Gushiken believes the base represents a moral affront targeting Okinawa's war dead and their families: some of the soil and sediment being used to reclaim land in the bay comes from seven former sites of Pacific war battles, where the remains of fallen soldiers and civilians remain buried. Dumping those remains into the sea to build a base for the US troops is, he says, 'a betrayal to their comrades-in-arms, to bereaved families and to the people of Japan'. The battle of Okinawa had become an inevitability a year before American troops came ashore, when the US capture of the Pacific island of Saipan signalled an invasion was only a matter of time. In July 1944, the government, anticipating an American assault on Okinawa, ordered the evacuation of 100,000 older people, women and children to Japan's main islands and Taiwan. On 21 August 1944, Hisashi Teruya boarded the Tsushima Maru, a transport vessel, at Naha port along with his mother, Shige, and his elder sister, Mitsuko. His father had been conscripted to fight in Siberia. The following evening their ship was struck by a US torpedo, killing 1,484 of the 1,800 passengers, including 784 schoolchildren. Teruya was asleep when the torpedo struck. 'I was four years old at the time, so I don't remember much,' he says. He has flashbacks of climbing a ladder up to the deck, which was swarming with petrified passengers. They were told to jump into the sea before the badly damaged ship sank, dragging them down with it. 'My mother pulled me by the hand, and we jumped.' Moments later, as they clung to the ropes of a large soy sauce barrel, Teruya's mother instructed him to hold on while she searched for his sister. That was the last time he saw his mother, who died along with his sister. As an approaching typhoon kicked up waves, Teruya drifted for 16 hours before being rescued by a fishing boat. 'I was just a little boy, so I can't remember my mother's face … only from photos,' he says. 'And I don't remember playing with my sister. I don't have any of those normal memories.' Teruya, who spent his childhood being passed around by relatives, did not utter a word about the Tsushima Maru tragedy until he was in his early 70s. 'I was getting old, so I thought it was time to open up about it,' he says in an interview at a memorial museum devoted to the tragedy. The 85-year-old's visits to the museum begin with a greeting before the grainy black-and-white photos of Shige and Mitsuko, exhibited on walls alongside images of hundreds of other victims. 'I tell them I have come to talk about the Tsushima Maru,' he says. With no family graves to visit, he set up a makeshift altar, his father – who did not survive the war – mother and sister each represented by stones he had found at personally meaningful locations. 'It won't be long until all of the people who lived through the war have gone, so I'm afraid that people will forget what happened,' he says. 'I hope that people who come here and learn about the Tsushima Maru will understand the horrors of war and realise that it can never happen again.' At 95, Eiki Senaha has clearer memories of the months his home turned into a battlefield. Then in his teens, he, like other Japanese schoolchildren, had been forced to abandon his studies to help the war effort. 'We were mobilised daily to build Kadena airfield,' says Senaha, a celebrated academic who is now president of Meio University. 'We carried shovels of dirt from morning till night. In those days, there was no asphalt or cement, so we had to break up rocks to build the runway.' In late March 1945, with the US invasion imminent, Senaha and other students were given a week to spend with their parents before returning to wartime duty. They were advised that this would be a good time to 'say goodbye'. But the air raids quickly intensified, forcing Senaha and his family to spend weeks hiding in the mountains. 'I could hear the sound of artillery shells,' he says. 'When they landed, they exploded and shrapnel would fly everywhere, slicing the branches off trees. I didn't want to move. My grandmother, who had poor eyesight, never stopped shaking.' Senaha had been told by military officials assigned to his school to kill himself rather than be captured and tortured by American soldiers. But as fires raged around his family's hideout, he and his relatives emerged with their arms raised to be confronted by dogs and soldiers with guns. 'I had decided to come out rather than die,' he said. 'I wanted to save my own life.' After a month in a makeshift camp as civilian prisoners, Senaha and his family were allowed to return to their village. It was a miracle that he had survived. 'My classmates died in droves. I'm sorry that they died and that I'm still alive. What did they think they were dying for? They died for their families. Not for the emperor. They died for their families, for the people of Okinawa.' As darkness falls, Gushiken returns on his moped to a hut outside his home and switches on his desk lamp. He leafs through an illustrated medical dictionary, his focus shifting between its pages to the fragments of bones on his desk. 'When I see the state of the bones, like those that were turned to charcoal by flamethrowers, I feel very sad,' he says. 'Especially if they belong to children.' On 23 June, the people of Okinawa will gather at the Cornerstone of Peace to mark the day their war ended, less than two months before Japan's disastrous militarist adventures were halted by two nuclear explosions hundreds of miles away. The anniversary will be a chance for Gushiken to reflect on how much – and how little – has changed in the eight decades since Japan embraced constitutional democracy, and his island became an American military fortress. 'Back then, if people spoke out against the war they were immediately arrested by the military police. There was no such thing as freedom of speech. That's why it's important that we speak out now, that we don't have to do as the government tells us. That we decide which direction the country goes in.' For now, though, Okinawa's future appears to be out of the hands of Gushiken and the majority of residents who oppose the new base in Henoko. Japan's government ignored the overwhelming 'no' vote delivered in a non-binding referendum in 2019, and the transfer of thousands of Marines, first agreed in 2012, only began this February, when just 105 left for Guam. US-Japan ties, and the regional tensions underpinning their alliance, have transformed since the bodies of soldiers and civilians were committed to Okinawa's soil. All the more reason, Gushiken says, for both countries to lay the ghosts of the past to rest. 'By using the soil to build the base, the Japanese government is stamping on the dignity of people who died in the battle – not just Japanese, but Americans and other people too,' he says. 'It's as if they are being killed all over again.' About this article Writer – Justin McCurry Video and photography - David Levene Multimedia editor – Laurence Topham Lead Designer - Harry Fischer Interactive Developers – Alessia Amitrano and Pip Lev Commissioning editor – Bonnie Malkin
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Daily Mirror
Monty Don names one daily job to make sure roses 'carry more flowers'
Gardening expert Monty Don has shared a top tip for gardeners who want to keep their roses flowering for longer, and it's a job that needs to be done daily Roses are treasured by many green-fingered enthusiasts for the stunning spectacle they present when in full bloom. Gardening expert Monty Don has highlighted a key task that should be performed daily to help these cherished plants "carry more flowers". In his blog, where he offers monthly gardening tips, Monty declared that people simply cannot herald the month of June without mentioning roses. He shared with his followers that he's increasingly opting for English roses that offer repeat flowering, therefore prolonging their beauty beyond the peak of June. Monty then divulged his "secret" to cultivating roses that boast a longer blooming period, reports the Express. His advice was clear: "The secret of keeping any rose flowering as long as possible is to deadhead daily." Deadheading involves removing wilted blooms to promote further flowering and enhance both the look and structure of the rose. For roses, arguably the most emblematic and enchanting of garden flora, consistent deadheading is crucial to maintain their opulent display throughout the season. This practice not only keeps the roses looking pristine but also helps stave off diseases and pests that tend to target decaying petals and hips. Monty stressed that gardeners should avoid merely plucking off dead petals; instead, they should use secateurs to cut the spent stem back to the next leaf or bud below, no matter how far down it might be. Monty highlighted the benefit of deadheading, stating it would "provoke a side-shoot which in turn will carry more flowers". He advised gardeners to regularly deadhead repeat-flowering shrub roses and those once-flowerers that don't bear hips. Furthermore, Monty emphasised the importance of continuing this practice well into July. He explained: "It is very important to keep deadheading roses in July as the petals fade to encourage repeat flowering, but some roses will have now finished all that they are going to do this year."
