Sunflowers at the Honda no Mori sunflower field in Niiza City, Saitama Prefecture. In the Niiza Athletic Park there is a community field called Honda no Mori. Each summer in August, thousands of sunflowers bloom. However, in 2021 they reduced the number of sunflowers. Moreover, they state “from 2021 the cultivation will be reduced”, implying there will be less sunflowers in 2022 and beyond too. They don’t specify how many or why, but one can only suspect that it has something to do with the Coronavirus.
Niiza Sunflowers
The Niiza sunflowers are a community effort supporting previous work of volunteers in Fukushima prefecture. Due to concerns over the possibility of radiation in the soil, the Fukushima volunteers had to cease efforts to cultivate an edible sunflower. People around Japan responded by growing the sunflowers in their own prefectures and sending the seeds back to Fukushima. In Niiza, the Niiza Himawari* Project was started in 2013 to this end. (*Himawari is the Japanese for Sunflower).
During the period of bloom, the sunflower field is open to the public from 8.30 am to 5 pm from Tuesdays to Sundays. That is, closed on Mondays. The sunflowers in Niiza ‘s Honda no Mori typically bloom from early August to around the end of August. Unfortunately, the website has not been updated for 2022 as of July 30th 2022, which is quite unusual. They normally update it earlier in the summer. It maybe a way to deter crowds of visitors, given that the Covid numbers are very high in Saitama at the moment.
They provide a phone on their website that is operated on weekdays from 9 am to 4 pm – if in doubt give it a call. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see “Tel” in English with the number.
Access
Address: 2 Chome-2 Honda, Niiza, Saitama 352-0022. Plus code: QHM2+FC Niiza, Saitama. On Google Maps.
A bus goes from the east exit of Higashi-kurume station. Alight at the bus stop for the Niiza Athletic park and walk about ten minutes to the sunflower fields.
Find even more sunflower events see the sunflower tag.