Information for both the Iris Garden at the site of the former Shobu Castle and the annual Kuki City Blue Festival. Iris Garden at the Former Shobu Castle This is one of Google Map’s funniest auto translate locations; on Google Maps the site is called “Iris Castle Toe Iris Gardens”!Read More →
The “Benibana” Safflower Festival of Okegawa is coming back in 2022. Okegawa didn’t even grow the safflower in 2020, but in 2021 they did and even penciled in a date for the festival. But ultimately it was cancelled due to the pandemic. This year, 2022, they have even made theRead More →
Bara no Komichi is an atelier and garden cafe in Ageo City in central Saitama. Bara is the Japanese for rose and Komichi means pathway or small passage. As you might guess from the name, the showpiece of the garden is its roses. But the garden and cafe are openRead More →
Tokigawa Town in the Hiki District of Saitama Prefecture is just over an hour from Tokyo. The town is famed for a rarer type of Iris; Iris Japonica or Butterfly flowers in English. However, there is also a small Iris garden in the town with the “hanashobu” variety of Iris:Read More →
Ten rose gardens in Saitama Prefecture, commutable from Tokyo. The main period of bloom for roses in Saitama is the month of May. However, there are also autumn roses that bloom in October. In addition, there are winter roses too and even a few varieties that bloom out of theRead More →
Information for the Poppies and Nadeshiko flowers in May and the Cosmos in October at Konosu’s Cosmos Arena Fuikage. Cosmos Arena Fukiage On the flood lands of the Arakawa river, millions of flowers grow annually in front of the Cosmos Arena Fukiage. Cosmos Arena Fukiage is a municipal sports facilityRead More →
Rose Festival Yono 2022. It looks like the Yono Rose Festival will go ahead in 2022 after a three year hiatus due to the pandemic. Yono Park, where the festival is held, made quite a name for itself when they cut all the beautiful roses in the spring of 2020Read More →
A mini post to introduce an open garden of moss phlox in Tokigawa. A beautiful private garden of pink, white and purple moss phlox. I absolutely adore moss phlox. Long before I even came to Japan. But after seeing the moss phlox of both Mt Fuji and Hitsujiyama since comingRead More →
Primroses Saitama. During April, generally the 3rd Saturday and Sunday of April, the city of Saitama host a number of Japanese primrose “Sakurasou” festivals. However, in 2020 and 2021 things were quite different on account of the Coronavirus. There was just one event disseminating information about primroses. In 2022 alsoRead More →
Information for Saitama’s largest rose garden at Ina Memorial Park and biannual rose festivals. The spring rose festival in Ina surprisingly went ahead in 2021 despite a stay at home directive. It was one of the few Rose festivals on in 2021. So no surprises that the festival will takeRead More →