Japanese people’s enthusiasm for flower watching extends far beyond the end of the world-famous cherry blossom season. Around the second half of April and into “Golden Week” (a series of national holidays during the first week of May), many parks throughout the country put on an amazing display of flowers of all varieties and colors, from fields covered in baby blue eyes or pink ground phlox to curtains of wisteria and tulip arrangements that will almost make the Dutch jealous. Here is a necessarily incomplete photo album with a few shots from some of the most famous flower gardens in Japan, collected over the last three springs.
The ground and the sky become one at Hitachi Seaside park, Ibaraki.
One of the two amazingly colorful and fragrant wisteria tunnels at the Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kyushu
One of the oldest wisteria trees at Ashikaga flower park in Tochigi Prefecture.
Fields of tulips in Showa Kinen park, Tachikawa (Tokyo Prefecture).
A lonely tree surrounded by a sea of baby blue eyes at Hitachi Seaside park, Ibaraki Prefecture.
Astounding carpets of blooming ground phlox (know in Japanese as “shibazakura”) at Hitsujiyama Park in Chichibu, Saitama prefecture.
Few things are as representative of Japan as the iconic silhouette of Fuji-san rising above an endless carpet of pink ground moss flowers at the Fuji Shibazakura Festival.
A stroll through the Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture
A carpet of ground phlox (known in Japanese as “shibazakura”) at Hitsujiyama Park, Saitama Prefecture.
Yellow rapeseed flowers against the blue hill covered in nemophila blossoms at Hitachi Seaside park, Ibaraki Prefecture.
Night illumination of the wisteria trees at Ashikaga flower park, Tochigi, creates the impression of an aurora borealis made out of flowers.