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Plant fukubukuro turns our apartment into an indoor garden for New Year

Oona McGee Jan 7, 2023
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An unusual Japanese lucky bag that’s bloomin’ marvellous.

Every time a new year begins, we spend most of our time shopping for fukubukuro, lucky grab bags that contain contents worth more than what you pay for.

While food and clothes generally make the top of our fukubukuro wishlist every year, there are also bags for gardeners, which is something we discovered last year, when we purchased an Indoor Plant Lucky Bag for 6,480 yen (US$49.06) that gave us the below items.

We were so pleased with last year’s haul that we decided to invest in a plant fukubukuro again, only this time we went for a “Gardening Lucky Bag”, which we purchased from the same store on online shopping site Rakuten, for 6,800 yen.

▼ The “bag” arrived in a large box, which we’ve shown here beside a Nintendo Switch for a better sense of size.

The box was two-tiered inside, which meant the plants were securely packed and perfectly undamaged upon delivery.

As soon as we unpacked the box, we couldn’t help but smile at the beautiful display. It was a wonderful way to bring a bit of colour into the home during the drab days of winter, and the included descriptions that came with the pack made caring for the plants a less daunting task.

First up, we have a Primula Obconica, in a good size. This plant is said to have a long flowering season and it blooms even in the darkest of days.

Next up is Primula malacoides, or the Fairy Primrose, which flowers from December through to April. The pink flowers reminded us of sakura cherry blossoms, so it was nice to have a hint of sakura in winter.

The next plant is simply called a “stock“, and it’s a genus of flowering plant in the Brassicaceae mustard family. The ones we received had deep purple flowers, although it comes in other colours such as red, white, and yellow as well.

The calendula was blooming with a beautiful yellow flower that opens when the sun hits it and closes when the sun goes down.

The Janome Erica was also blooming, with densely packed fine flowers.

The stamens are black and look like the eyes of a snake, hence the Japanese name “janome“, which translates to “eye of the snake“.

The North Pole was displaying a beautiful white flower, and we could see lots of buds on the plants as well, which promised to cover the foliage with white flowers in the next few weeks.

The Sweet Alyssum looked beautiful with its dainty white flowers, and it had a slightly sweet scent that was gorgeous as well.

According to the instruction sheets we received, Sweet Alyssum goes well with pansies and violas, so we were delighted to see them included in our bundle.

The final item in the collection was the Goldcrest Conifer, in two sizes.

Putting them all together, we were impressed to see the amount of thought and care that had gone into choosing the plants for this lucky bag — not only did we have flowering plants that bloom at this time of year, we also had plants of varying heights, to create a visually pleasing arrangement.

With 16 plants in total, this fukubukuro was a fantastic deal. While the quantity and quality of the contents were impressive, we also appreciated the fact that it took the guesswork and decision-making out of buying plants, which sometimes leaves us feeling flustered and confused.

Now we have a bright room filled with life and colour that’ll be keeping us happy until the flowers fade in spring. But by then, the country will have burst into bloom for sakura season, which now doesn’t seem too far away!

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[ Read in Japanese ]