Sado - Botanical Garden and Insect Research

In Hamochi, next to the onsen, there is a small botanical garden. An older woman takes care of the plants there by herself, and today we want to help her with the work on the irises. The flowers grow in a field a little further away. There is a lot of weeds growing around the irises, which we remove with a small saw and place around the flowers. This keeps the soil underneath moist, and the weeds also fertilize the plants. Jasmine, a student from England who has already accompanied us to the duck rice field, is also with us today. We also want to take a look at the various insects that exist on Sado Island. While we are cutting the weeds, we will take photos of the beetles, flies, bees, and ants that we find. After working in the iris field, we will return to the temple and continue our insect research there. We will go to the field behind the temple, where persimmon trees and two rice fields grow. When walking in the hilly landscape, you have to be careful not to step on a hornet's nest or snake hole with every step, but fortunately we don't find any. Due to the high biodiversity, almost every time we see an insect, we find something new. We take lots of photos and then meet Jasmine again at the temple. We will draw a map of the area and mark where we found which insects. In the meantime, we will make tea from the wild herbs we found in the field. Grace, my roommate, will paint a picture of the beetle that sprayed her with stinky stuff, and then Jasmine will head home again and we will relax for the rest of the day.