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| Ritsurin Garden Map |
Ritsurin Garden is one of the most famous gardens in all of Japan. It is historical and existed as a private garden to the fuedal lord who created it in 1625. The first section to be built was the south pond area and the garden was expanded by various owners since until it became a prefectural garden and opened to the public.
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| Ritsurin Garden |
The garden is an intricate maze of pathways through various manicured areas. The area on the left side of the map is mostly coniferous trees around the ponds with some sections of Japanese Maple. Small bridges link pathways and create a very intricate walkway system and add to the scenery.
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| Ritsurin Garden |
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| Ritsurin Garden |
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| Ritsurin Garden |
Wildlife is common in the gardens despite being in the middle of a city. SOme areas are blocked to fish and tadpoles are thriving in large numbers (and of massive size as well). A few species of turles were observed including Chinese Softshell Turtle, Red-eared Sliders and some nondescript turtle that I didn't get a good enough look at to identify.
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| Tadpole |
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| Chinese Softshell Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) |
A waterfall in the back of the garden with the forested hill in the background makes it quite obvious what attracted the feudal lords to this specific site in the city to create a beautiful garden.
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| Ritsurin Garden |
Although the manicured scenery has a very Japanese style beauty, there are not a lot of herbaceous plants in the garden and very few 'pretty flowers' to look at. Scattered around the mowed grass were some 'weeds' that managed to survive the cutting.
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Blue Toadflax
(Nuttallanthus canadensis)
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Some flowering trees, including the cherry blossoms, had finished blooming but scattered around the deciduous part of the garden were some Dogwood (
Cornus) flowering. Otherwise it was mostly Rhododendron shrubs adding a bit of colour to the garden.
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| Ritsurin Garden |
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| Ritsurin Garden |
The deciduous side of the garden is less open and much greener. It still lacks a healthy understory of vegetation but it has a much higher diversity of trees.
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| Ritsurin Garden |
Japanese Maple has always been a favorite of mine. I love how they grow a bit twisty and how pretty they are when they change colour in the fall. I never noticed before how cute their flowers were though.
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| Japanese Maple Flowering |
After the garden we went to visit a temple (Zentsū-ji). Again we got there at sundown and all of my photos are in the dark. The pagoda at least is lit up at night. The temple is quite old and covers a large area. The grounds are dirt everywhere with no lawn and only a small forested area with some understory. The trees here are quite old and impressive. The wood on the bu8ildings is intricately carved but still simple as to be not eclectic.
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| Zentsū-ji |
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| Zentsū-ji |
