Next: around 5 Jun to 4 Jul 2027
Hydrangea season
Ajisai, the flower of Japan's rainy season, turns temple paths blue through June.
What happens
In most of Japan the rainy season, tsuyu, lasts from early June into July, and the hydrangea is its flower. It looks best wet. Temples planted them on their slopes, and some are known as hydrangea temples. In Kamakura, south of Tokyo, visitors queue for the blue-lined steps of Meigetsu-in and the hillside path of Hasedera. The colour depends on the soil: acid ground gives blue and alkaline ground pink. Japan is a home of the wild plant, and garden kinds were bred from it.
The flowers
Also part of it, and being written: Iris ensata (Japanese iris, which flowers in water gardens in the same weeks.).
Original text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Background: "Hydrangea macrophylla" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Hydrangea: 3268zauber, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Bigleaf Hydrangea: belvedere04, CC BY 4.0, source