Park near Mt. Fuji gives moss phlox to northeastern Japan group to replant

KOFU, Japan – A park near Mt. Fuji donated 8,000 moss phlox plants to a group in Yamagata Prefecture in northeastern Japan on Tuesday, so they could be replanted after many of the vivid pink flowers died due to an accidental use of herbicide earlier this year.

Local residents in Tendo in Yamagata began planting moss phlox, a ground cover plant, in 2009 along the Tachiya River in an effort to clean up the riverbanks.

But a 650-meter stretch of the vegetation died after a company commissioned by the prefecture mistakenly sprayed herbicide, according to the group Tachiyagawa no Hanasakajiisan, which maintained the area.

Learning about the incident from the media, Fuji Motosuko Resort, a privately-run park in Yamanashi Prefecture famous for its moss phlox garden with Mt. Fuji as a backdrop, offered the replacement plants.

Some members of the group visited the park Tuesday and received the seedlings and loaded them onto a truck. Kazuo Matsuda, 65-year-old representative of the group, said, “I want to carefully nurture them until they are firmly rooted.”