Seasonal blooms at Fukaya Green Park

Information for the seasonal flowers and blooms at Fukaya Green Park beside Aqua Paradise Patio.

Fukaya Green Park

Fukaya Green park is a small park beside the indoor pool and leisure center Aqua Paradise Patio. The park isn’t particularly big, but it has some beautiful cherry blossoms. Interestingly ANA describes it as a “vast park”, it makes me wonder did we accidentally miss a whole section of it on our visits over the years. However, taking a look at Google Maps, I’m pretty sure we didn’t miss anything! Fukaya City is the second largest producer of tulips in all of Japan. It was a deliberate choice to display some of Fukaya’s pride, tulips in spring. Likewise they display lilies in summer, because Fukaya city is the proud top producer of lilies in all of Japan.

Tulips

At Fukaya Green Park, there is a picturesque tulip display from late March to around mid April. According to the official website there are 30,000 pink, red, yellow and white tulips in bloom this year, 2021. To be honest, that figure quite surprises me. If I had to guess I would have thought it was about half of that. The official blog announced that they were at 70 to 80% on March 31st. So we visited on April 1st. They were practically at full bloom.

Tulips in Konosu

Cherry Blossoms

There are dozens of mature cherry blossoms in Fukaya Green Park. The main walkway from Patio pools to the green spaces is an avenue or tunnel of sakura. Its quite short, but photogenic. The path (sidewalk) reminds me of the Yellow Brick Road! You can see the tulips on one side. And on the other side a large open green space which is also surrounded by cherry blossom trees. There is a second tunnel of cherry blossoms around the West open green space where the playground is. Cherry blossoms line the top of the hill in this area.

Cherry Blossoms and tulips

Normally you can see the cherry blossoms and tulips together for at least week. However, this year and last the cherry blossoms were early. And the tulips are barely in full bloom. Therefore the window is very small this year to see the two bloom together. However, hopefully there are a couple of days left with them both contrasting to create such stunning scenery. However, even after the blossoms have finished, you can see the tulips against the fresh green of the sakura. The tulips bloom until around mid April. You can also see tulips and cherry blossoms together in Saitama City.

Lilies

Fukaya ships about 23 million cut lily flowers annually, making it the top lily producer in all of Japan. The lilies at Fukaya Green Park are often planted in May, but I believe in 2021 they were planted in June. They actually take quite a long time to flower – 62 days in 2020! In 2020 though they were already in full bloom by the end of the first week of July. However, as of July 12th 2021 there is only one small section of red lilies currently in bloom.

Obviously the cherry blossoms aren’t blooming in summer. But they are full of green leaves. The contrast might not be as dramatic as in spring when the pink blossoms bring out the color of the tulips. But the different colored lilies backdropped by the green cherry blossoms are just as pretty. The above photo was taken July 7th last year, 2020. However, as of July 12th 2021, not even 1% of the lilies are flowering yet.

After the lilies, sunflowers grow around mid August. If you are coming to see the lilies in July and using route 140 from the Kumagaya direction, you will pass some sunflowers that bloom mid July. In Autumn you can see cosmos – typically from mid October to mid November.

Flower garden

There is also a small flower garden in the North West corner of the park. It has a couple of different photo props, such as the one pictured above. They grow a few different seasonal flowers together in this area.

Fukaya Green Park Information

Facilities

• Playground
• Pagoda
• Vending machines
• Water drinking fountains
• Public toilets
• There are even more facilities / services within Aqua Paradise Patio

Access

There is a free “Patio” shuttle bus from the rotary at the South entrance of the JR Fukaya station. The Takasaki line stops at Fukaya Station. There is about one bus an hour between 10 am and 4 pm. You can see the latest timetable here. Please note that the shuttle bus maybe suspended again, depending on the Coronavirus situation. But it is currently scheduled to run during April.

By car: the park is about an 18 minute drive from the Hanazono Interchange of the Kanetsu expressway.

In the area

• Wanpaku land and Sengenyama are only a 6 minute drive away – post coming soon
• Kawamoto Sun Green park is a 20 minute drive away
• Saitama Agricultural Park is also a 20 minute drive away (its across the road from Kawamoto Sun Green Park)
• Hanazono Forest | FUKAYA and Hanazono Roadside station are less than 20 minutes by car
• Kawasemi-gawara, Arakawa BBQ spot and campsite is also less than 20 minutes by car