Nagasaki: Former Scottish Trader’s House Decorated with Flowerbed to Celebrate 50th Anniversary of Glover Garden Opening

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:28 JST, March 1, 2025

NAGASAKI — The former residence of Scottish trader Thomas Glover (1838-1911) has now been decorated with a colorful flowerbed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Glover Garden, a garden park surrounding the historical house in Nagasaki.

During his life, Glover contributed to the modernization of Japan, and his former home is now a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. The Glover Garden, comprising the former Glover House and its grounds, opened as a tourist spot in 1974 and celebrated the 50th anniversary of its opening in September last year.

The flowerbed decorations, which will be on display until around late March, were arranged by Kazuyuki Ishihara, 67, a local garden designer.

Ishihara has won gold medals 12 times at the Chelsea Flower Show, a garden design competition organized by Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society. He is active worldwide, and the late Queen Elizabeth II once called him “a wizard of greenery.”

At Glover Garden, in the center of a circular flowerbed about six meters in diameter, Ishihara installed a monument with a wave pattern. He then planted about 2,000 flowers in six varieties, such as pansies, violas and calendulas. The composition creates the impression of colorful rings of flowers expanding like ripples.

The city of Nagasaki has so many hills and valleys that it is sometimes called a “city of slopes.” Ishihara said, “On the occasion of this 50th anniversary, I hope lots of flowers will bloom across the slopes of Nagasaki.”