Part garden log, part the story of how I ended up here. This is the closest thing to an "about me" I know how to write.
I'm Aida. I grew up around roses in Spain, where they ask almost nothing of you — a little sun, a little water, and they bloom because that is simply what the summer is for.
Then I came to Kyoto. And I met a summer that European roses were never built to meet: the wet heat, the air that never dries, the small piece of sky above an old charred-cedar wall. For a while, I lost more plants than I kept.
Nothing behaved the way it had at home. Neither did I.
So I started writing things down. Not a manual — I didn't have answers. Just notes. What failed. What surprised me. What a rose will forgive, and what it never will. Which afternoons of shade save a plant, and which just delay the loss.
これは、その記録です。
正解ではなく、私がこの土地で覚えたこと。失敗したこと、驚いたこと。
I'm not from here either. That is exactly why I understand what these roses are going through.Yo tampoco soy de aquí. Por eso entiendo por lo que pasan estas rosas.
I don't grow roses that belong in Kyoto. I teach roses to become Kyoto — the same slow, stubborn thing I've been doing myself. This notebook is where I keep track of both.
In Spain, the enemy is drought. Here, it's the opposite — humidity. The roses don't die of thirst; they drown in their own damp leaves. I learned to prune for airflow before beauty, so the plant can breathe and dry between the rains. It looks less tidy. It stays alive.
スペインの敵は乾燥。京都の敵は、その逆——湿気。
美しさより先に、風のために切る。少し無骨になる。けれど、枯れない。
One variety struggled for two seasons — spotted leaves, no flowers, nothing I did seemed to matter. I nearly pulled it out. Then I stopped treating it like a Spanish rose and started treating it like a Kyoto one: less feeding, more air, a little patience. It held. It's still with me.
二季のあいだ、葉に斑点、花もつかず。抜こうとした。
「スペインのバラ」として扱うのをやめた瞬間、その株は生き残った。
You cannot import a European garden into Kyoto and expect it to hold. The climate always wins. So I stopped trying to make this place look like somewhere else. The garden I'm building now isn't Spanish, and it isn't quite Japanese. It's what happens when both learn to live in the same small courtyard.
ヨーロッパの庭を、そのまま京都には持ち込めない。気候がいつも勝つ。
だから、ここを"どこか別の場所"に見せるのをやめた。
Everything I had to learn the hard way — how European roses actually survive a hot, wet Kyoto summer — gathered into one guide you can keep. In English, Español, and 日本語.
Follow along, and you'll be first to read it when it's ready.
Follow the becoming →