Not a good year for the Konosu Flower Festival

It really hasn't been a very lucky year for the Konosu Flower Festival this year. Between rain and flower growing issues. The festival, which is quite well known within the Kanto plain and famous within Saitama, is on annually for one week in May. That was this week. Tomorrow is the last day. It comprises four different elements, including open gardens and three flower festivals - two poppy festivals and one rose festival.

Last Saturday, the first day of the festival, they had to close all but one of the parking lots at the largest site due to rain. The vast majority of the temporary parking lots for the festival are on agriculture land, which gets very muddy in rain. They had to close them again today also due to rain. And I won't be surprised if they have to close them again tomorrow. They charge for parking as a way of contributing to the costs of the festival, so no doubt they are missing the income this year.

Then there is also the fact that people are less likely to visit flower fields during or after rain, knowing that they will be muddy. In addition, due to rain some of the elements of the festival were cancelled, such as the flower picking event. I visited one of the sites yesterday and drove by another on Tuesday and they are much less busy than in previous years. 

Furthermore, at the biggest site of the festival, the Mamuro poppy fields, which is known as the largest poppy field in Japan, there is much less poppies than normal due to a shortage of poppy seeds in Saitama Prefecture this year. The shortage affected other poppy fields in Saitama this year too.

Was there a shortage of poppy seeds in your Prefecture this year? How about the weather - has it affected poppy festivals in your area?