MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--With Christmas just around the corner, staff at Nemoto Engei in the city’s Haramachi district are busy shipping pots of cyclamen.
MINAMI-SOMA, Fukushima Prefecture--With Christmas just around the corner, staff at Nemoto Engei in the city’s Haramachi district are busy shipping pots of cyclamen.
About 30 varieties of the flower, which comes in various colors, are shipped to the Kanto region and Sendai, capital of nearby Miyagi Prefecture.
Operator Shuji Nemoto, 61, had grown the flower for more than 40 years in a farm in the city’s Odaka district, which is within 20 kilometers of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Nemoto was forced to evacuate, but his passion for growing cyclamen never left him.
Nemoto resumed his cyclamen business in December last year, borrowing an unused plastic greenhouse from a friend.
He did not want to leave the city where he was born and raised, he said.
Last year Nemoto shipped 3,000 pots, far fewer than the pre-earthquake levels of around 15,000 pots.
“I hope the flowers will let our customers know that we are still hanging in here,” Nemoto said.