Tokyo's unexpected green tinge

In this huge metropolis that's one and half times the population of my home country, it amazes me how much green there is. There seems to be a compulsion to grow stuff in the smallest of places. Tiny garden beds seem to be regularly included on the side of houses or built into property walls these days (not so much in the older buildings like our house). 

Here's a house we've driven past quite a lot on the way back from cross-country meets these last few weeks. They've got a tree growing in that tiny garden! Plus something that looks like it could be a bonsai plant on the other side of the front door.

Of course not everyone has a green thumb (for example, yours truly, who mostly only grows geraniums because they are really hard to kill). Some of the garden beds seem to be wishful thinking: put in at entrances that are on the northern side of a building, and hence get almost no sun except in mid-summer. One building near us must have had pine trees planted there when it was built, on the north side of the building. We've watched them gradually die and finally, fall over into the street.

I passed this house on the way to Costco a couple of weeks ago. No one's grabbed the opportunity of that garden bed, but at least it's not overflowing with weeds.

I found this small ornamental chilli bush in full "bloom" on my way to the doctor last month. I passed it again yesterday and it wasn't looking so healthy. But I want to include the photo as an example of the little bits of nature that lie all around us here. This bush is in a long raised garden bed in, essentially, the central business area of our suburb. In the background you can see another one (which had mostly weeds at the time). These public areas are generally looked after by local citizen groups, who often have work days where they get out and tidy up, often planting annuals.

It's not what fits my mind's eye with what a big city will look like.