Gardens of the World : HAMARIKYU GARDEN, Tokyo, Japan

This garden is relatively new with regards to the usual longevity of gardens in Japan. It was turned into a public garden in 1946. The Hamarikyu Garden is situated along the Sumida River. The garden features a pond, a typical feature of Japanese gardens, and is surrounded by a moat filled by Tokyo Bay. On the garden site there used to be a villa belonging to the last shogun family, the Tokugawa (between 1600 and 1868).

 

There is a tree in there that predates the opening of the public garden by three centuries : a black pine that was meticulously trained to grow horizontally for one main branch starting low from the main trunk, while the other main branch was allowed to grow vertically as one would expect that a tree should grow.

 

What is so fascinating about that horizontal branch is how the Japanese, for so many generations, patiently trained it to the point where it is now a huge trunk in its own right. The plaque (below) mentions that this pine is one of the largest in Tokyo:

 

 

Below are some pictures of that tree from various angles. You can clearly see the huge posts used to support the horizontal trunk along a good part of its length.

 

 



This photo (above) shows how even the vertical part of the tree is supported. And below is a more distant view of that vertical part, with Tokyo buildings in the background and the horizontal part of the tree in the foreground.

 

 

 

 

 





The photo above shows some detail of the supporting posts for the horizontal part of this venerable black pine, while the one below gives an idea of what that part of the tree looks like when walking on the pathway.

 

 

Below is a view of the branching out of the horizontal part of the tree from the main trunk. The branching out is about one meter from the ground

 

 

 

(Please remember to click on any of the photos for a larger image.)

 

Aside from the above attraction, the Hamarikyu garden has a plum grove. Plum trees are a favorite for Japanese, after the cherry trees. Both are appreciated for their blooms, which occur early in the spring, the plum trees showing their delicate flowers first. It is a common sight, in Japanese gardens in the spring, to find visitors (including the Japanese themselves) taking photos of blooming plum trees (ume) and cherry trees (sakura). More will be said about the sakura in a future article.

 

Here is a sign below welcoming visitors to such a plum grove in this garden:

 

 

And here are (below) some of those beautiful plum tree blooms:

 

 

With the photo below it will be apparent that I have a liking of various tree shapes:

 

 

 

The tree label indicated it was a 'cockspur coral tree' (Erythrina crista-galli) and due to the early season (it was March when I visited this garden) I had no way of knowing if the tree was dead or not. It sure was pruned quite severely in any case!

 

 



 

 The photo above shows a mustard plot protected by a plastic mesh, presumably from some pests. Finding mustard growing in a public garden devoted mainly to trees and flowers comes as no surprise in a country like Japan, where edible greens of all kinds are actively grown in every available space.

Finally, I had to show this one below, a small palm tree (sorry I don't have the specific name) growing in this garden. The Tokyo area is not that cold for palm trees to be able to grow there.

(article and photos by Denise Motard)