LINE 173 Participation in Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens Flower Field "Hana Ippai Project" (Making of Summer Flowerbeds)

On May 28 (Saturday), NTT West Tokai Group took part in the "Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens Hana Ippai Project (Making of Summer Flowerbeds)" held at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Nagoya City.
Held three times a year in spring, summer and autumn, the main activities of this project include planting of seedlings and continued maintenance of the owner's flowerbeds at the flower field inside Higashiyama Botanical Gardens.
The number of participants from NTT West Tokai Group is increasing each time, marking a record high in this round with 162 participants who are employees, retired employees and their family members. A large number of newly-recruited employees also joined in this time, which made the event more lively.
The sky was cloudy on the day of the event, but the pleasant weather was perfect for the activity.
After the opening ceremony, participants carefully planted 2,300 sunflower plants of six different types one by one at three different owner's flowerbeds. We can almost see the sunflower plants growing tall toward the sun, and cannot wait for the day to come.

In the afternoon, those who were interested joined in a "Touring the Botanical Garden with a Perfumer" program, which included a fun quiz to guess the name of the flower by sniffing pieces of paper with the fragrance of different types of flower. Participants also learned that the "sense of smell" is the next most important sense besides the "sense of touch," and also the ways to train their "sense of smell."

We will continue to request participants to engage in the periodic maintenance of the flowerbeds including weeding and cleaning of areas around them. At the same time, the growth of the sunflowers will be recorded using digital cameras and smartphones and shared with all the employees on our in-house website.

ICT is also utilized for the flowerbeds. For example, a sensor is installed at the flowerbeds of NTT West Group that are planted with sunflowers. Whenever someone comes close to the flowerbed, a voice recording saying "this is the flowerbed of NTT Group. Please look up 'Minna no Hanazukan (Flower Encyclopedia for Everyone)' to learn more about the type of flower" will automatically play back. There is also a QR code on the signboard which can be scanned using a smartphone to access the webpage of "Minna no Hanazukan," the most comprehensive flower encyclopedia in Japan. Not only can photos of flowers be posted to this webpage, users can also search for information of flowers that are included in the encyclopedia.

We hope that these efforts will help people to interact more easily with flowers, grass and trees, trigger their interest in growing plants, come into close contact with nature, and develop an awareness to take good care of nature.

Participating companies

NTT West Tokai Group

Venue

Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens (Nagoya City)

No. of participants

162