Ashikaga Flower Park (43 photos)

Ashikaga Flower Park is located in the city of the same name in the Japanese province of Tochigi on the island of Honshu. The park covers about 8.2 hectares and is famous for its various species of wisteria (in Japanese its name sounds like Fuji).

1. I already talked about this riot of colors, but once again I couldn’t pass by a new selection of photographs from this garden.

2. Wisteria is a genus of tall tree-like climbing subtropical plants from the Legume family with large clusters of fragrant flowers. Wisteria flowers, white, blue, violet or purple, look like moths. Collected in large hanging clusters, they look extremely impressive against the backdrop of dense green foliage. Fragrant clusters of lilac wisteria are reminiscent of our white acacia, our spring southern streets and all the good things that come with it.

3. Ashikaga Flower Park features many blue, white and pink wisteria, as well as yellow broom (in Japanese: kingusari), which look like yellow wisteria.

4. The park flowers are usually in full bloom in early May, two weeks later than the wisteria bloom in Tokyo. Ashikaga is considered one of the best places to view wisteria in bloom in Japan; the flowers in the park are planted very closely and create very beautiful and whimsical compositions.

5. The park has a 100-year-old wisteria, as well as about 160 wisterias that are about 60 years old and 1,500 azaleas that are more than 60 years old.

6. For the hundred-year-old wisteria, the park has created a huge frame to support a huge umbrella of violet-blue flowers (wisteria is a vine and forms very well). There is also a long white wisteria tunnel, and the yellow broom kingusari tunnel will take many more years to become an actual tunnel (it's just a canopy for now).

7. Wisteria (wisteria) is a vine that prefers to twine around supports. The support can be another tree, a gazebo, or the wall of a building. Wisteria blooms in large hanging clusters that emit a sweet, unique aroma. It attracts insects, especially bees. The blooming of wisteria is truly a stunning sight!

8. But the very center of all the flower arrangements that can be found in the Ashikaga Flower Park is a kind of “old inhabitants”, in which role are wisteria. Some flowers are over 100 years old! There are also slightly younger specimens, but their age is no less impressive: 160 flowers, which are about 60 years old, and 1,500 azaleas - they are also about 60.

9. Since wisteria are climbing plants, park workers simply could not miss the opportunity to create a kind of tunnel from these beautiful flowers. One of these tunnels has already been opened and is capable of delighting thousands of visitors with the violet-blue tones of these plants. Another tunnel was also built, but it takes several decades for it to become a full-fledged floral masterpiece, so for now it’s just a canopy.

10. Do you know what the Japanese call “Fuji”? Besides sacred Fuji? It turns out that this is the Japanese name for the wonderful flowers that we used to call wisteria. It would seem that in a country where many people live in apartments of several square meters, where industry is so developed, there is no place for gardens and parks. But no. No matter what, the Japanese sacredly honor traditions. One of the most beautiful is admiring flowering trees... And one of the places where you can come to touch the beauty is Ashikaga Flower Park.

11. Long clusters of her fragrant flowers rush down like a waterfall - white, violet, purple, pink, blue and yellow clusters on a green background of leaves represent a stunning and unique sight! There are several thousand wisteria in the park. Many of them are already “aged” - in Ashikaga Park you can see wisteria that are more than a century old! It’s already hard for these “old ladies” to stand, so the designers have designed special frames for the huge flower caps of the magnificent vines. There are four such gazebos here.

12. The eighty-meter tunnel made of white wisteria also evokes constant exclamations of admiration. Snow-white brushes with flowers that look like tiny butterflies and a sweet, delicate aroma - it’s not for nothing that the Japanese call walking through the tunnel the road to happiness.

13.Wisteria blooms from mid-April to mid-May, but the flower park is also beautiful at other times of the year.

13. In February-March, plum blossoms here, a little later daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and muscari appear - the first harbingers of spring. In April and May, the garden bursts into life with a fantastic fireworks display of thousands of rhododendrons and azaleas (including 1,500 bushes that are over 60 years old!).

15. From May to June and all autumn, the garden is filled with the scent of 1500 roses.

16. Summer is the time of hydrangeas, clematis, petunias, irises and lupins. And the season ends with purple saffron flowers in late autumn... The garden falls asleep to welcome guests again next year - an endless story of beauty and perfection...

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