Six Things a Garden Should Be
In Kenrokuen garden, Polly sees koi in a big pond and ropes that keep snow off the pine trees.
Before you read
Before you read
Next to the castle is a garden. In the middle is a big pond. There is a stone bridge and a stone lantern. Under the water, koi fish turned slowly. Some were orange. One old fish was black.
The name means the garden of six good things. An old idea says a garden needs six things, and no garden can have them all. People could visit from eighteen seventy-four.
Every year on the first of November, the work starts. Gardeners put a tall pole next to each big pine. Ropes go from the top to the branches. The tree sits inside a big cone of rope. The snow here is very heavy.
One famous pine needs eight hundred ropes. Polly watched the fish turn.
That's the story.
You just heard Polly
Want to hear what YOU sound like?
Read a line of the story out loud. Your recording stays on your device and is never uploaded.
Not bad, right? In the PollyStop app, Polly listens to exactly that and scores you right away.
Coaching, saved words, spaced repetition, and a fresh story every day.
Get PollyStop freeYour AI tutor
Now say it out loud. Talk about this story with Polly.
Polly is PollyStop's voice tutor. She talks with you about stories like this one, out loud.
Get PollyStop free.
- A new graded story every day, with audio.
- Save the words you meet and practise them later.
- Speaking practice with feedback.
- Polly, the voice tutor, is opening up to more learners.
Keep going at A2
Next stories
Keep learning in PollyStop
Listen, save words, practise