Bonsai museum and district

The area around Omiya-Koen, Omiya Park, hosts the Japanese National Bonsai Museum.











It is just north of Tokyo and  about 1/2 an hour from our house.
In addition to the museum  many bonsai growers and nurseries are in this area.


The museum is hosting the World Bonsai Conference next month and a wonderful exhibition is already in place.

Some of the bonsai on display are classified as national treasures and are hundreds of years old.

This was a favourite of mine. its actually a quince tree, I like the natural look and the texture of the trunk.


After the greart Tokyo earthquake of 1923 the bonsai growers of Tokyo moved en-mass to this part of Omiya where there was more land available and  they all settled together in this area.

The growers adopted a set of strict rules beween themselves one of which was that their gardens and nurseries  should be freeely open to the public.




To this day quite a few of the growers and gardens survive and it is lovely to walk and explore amongst them.

The streets are wide, beautful and quiet and a great contrast to the modern jumbled
ugliness of much of settled modern Japan.

As a bonus we came across an archery school practicing.

Sakura Time

It's cherry blossom time in Tokyo. This year about a week later than usual. It is  fair to say that the Japanese go a little crazy at this time. 

Hordes descend on parks to picnic, with family, colleagues and friends. It can get very crowded indeed.

It wouldn't be a proper local festival without the obligatory dancing grannies.

There is always a group of them at every festival.






I've almost managed to erase the memory of the stetson and cowboy booted line dancing grannies that amazed the crowd in rural Gunma last year, but it has  been hard to.

Luckily I found a beautiful avenue of trees on an irrgiation canal not far from the house so we were able to have our own cherry blossom viewing picnic without another soul around.

In Tokyo city itself you can see many trees outside of the parks.

Left are the trees by the outer moat of the palace at Iidabashi

The area along the river at Nakameguro is a very popular spot in Tokyo. Great corwds assemble to take selfies, stroll along and drink pink champagne etc.

Finally two of my favourite trees. Firstly the tree opposite our house by the 500 year old temple. it's in full flower at the moment.

 

And finally the Takizakura, waterfall cherry, in Fukushima, this tree is over a thousand years old and during all that time the loicals have been caring for it.