Abstract
The recent disaster of earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 severely attacked East Japanese cities and people, and in addition, the accident of nuclear power station will inevitably damage the agricultural activities there. The economical depression influences on the horticulture and floriculture industry as well, through the reluctant consumption all over the country. Such a situation reflects a conventional perception that the garden plants or ornamental plants have been regarded as a symbol of capitalism, representing the success, luxury, beauty or other metaphors indicating the winners of business war. But as the word "culture" means "cultivation" originally, horti "culture" or flori "culture" should have played some roles in cultivating lands as well as cultivation of human minds, leading to develop a modern "culture" which may lay emphases on personality, originality, partnership, cooperation, diversity and so forth. In this article, a brief history of garden plants in Japan, as well as some current movements in Japanese horticulture and floriculture, is reviewed with some commodities which possess messages on creating a new humane culture.
