Nanohana, fuji, and more reasons to get out and see Japan’s springtime flowers.

All of the seasons are celebrated in Japanese culture, but there’s a special mix of liberation and fun that comes with the arrival of spring. As the snow thaws and flowers start to bloom, many people are in the mood for their first extended outdoor excursions in weeks, if not months, and ready with suggestions is Japanese travel portal Jalan.

Jalan conducted a survey, collecting 1,054 responses from its users between the ages of 20 and 59, asking them to pick Japan’s best spring-feeling flower-viewing spots, and for the sake of greater variety, it looks like the Somei Yoshino, the most prevalent cherry blossom variety, has been excluded from the list (though we’ll still see some other kinds of sakura in the selection).

Let’s take a look at the survey’s top 9 results.

9. Ashigaike Agricultural Park/Sante Park Tahara (Aichi Prefecture)
Website

Located in the city of Tahara on a peninsula that sticks out into Mikawa Bay, Ashigaike Agricultural Park, also know as Sante Park Tahara, has bicycling paths, a small farm with ponies and pigs, and a produce market. Those are in addition to its beautiful flower fields, though, and in late Marach and early April the star of them all is the park’s giant tulip circle, which measures 25 meters (82 feet) across.

8. Tsukigae Bairin (Nara Prefecture)
Website

When most tourists think of Nara, the things that come to mind are temples and deer. If you’re headed to Nara City between late February and mid-March, though, don’t forget about the ume, or plum blossoms. Situated along the bank of the Satsukigawa River, the Tsukigae Bairin is a forest of over 10,000 plum trees that’s been considered one of the most beautiful places in Japan to see the flowers for more than a century.

7. Hirota Bairin Fureai Park (Hyogo Prefecture)
Website

We’ve got another bairin (“plum grove”) here, this one in the town of Awaji on Awajishima Island in the Seto Inland Sea. Hirota Bairin is actually a revival of a previous plum garden that had occupied the same plot of land, with the project starting 50 years ago when 50 new trees were planted. Today, Hirota Bairin boasts roughly 450 trees, with 13 varieties of plum blossoms ranging in colors from vivid pink to pure white. With Awajishima being located halfway between Japan’s main island of Honshu and the island of Shikoku, scattered around the garden are also small spots of worship dedicated to the 88 sites of the Shikoku temple pilgrimage, allowing you to make a pseudo circuit while admiring the flowers. The ume here tend to bloom a little sooner than in Tsukigae Bairin, making mid-February to early March the best time to visit.

6. Kamiyubetsu Tulip Park (Hokkaido Prefecture)
Website

We’re going all the way up to Kamiyubetsu, a town in Japan’s northernmost prefecture, for this entry. Not only does Kamiyubetsu Tulip Park have roughly 200 different varieties of tulips, since warm spring weather comes to Hokkaido a little later than it does to the rest of Japan, the park’s tulips tend to start blooming in early May and reach their peak in the middle of the month, giving travelers a chance to see them during the Golden Week vacation period.

5. Ashikaga Flower Park (Tochigi Prefecture)
Website

We’ve talked about this place before, as it’s arguably the best garden in Japan in which to see wisteria, or fuji, as they’re called in Japanese. The park’s 350 wisteria trees create breathtaking tunnels and canopies of flowers between mid-April and mid-May, including those of its Great Wisteria, which is more than 160 years old whose branches cover an area of more than 1,000 square meters (10,764 square feet).

4. Nanohana Park (Nagano Prefecture)
Website

Sitting on the eastern bank of the Chikuma River in Nagano’s Iiyama, this is another spot where a cool climate creates opportunity for later-in-the-season flower viewing. Those cheerful yellow flowers are nanohana, what Japan calls rapeseed flowers, and the vibrant carpet they create starting in early May makes for a striking contrast with the blue alpine skies of the Nagano highlands.

3. Inabe Nogyo Park (Mie Prefecture)
Website

We’ve got one more bairin on the list, this one in Inabe, a city in Mie Prefecture. With some 2,000 plum blossom trees across around 50 different varieties, the flowers create an incredible mosaic, especially when seen from the park’s observation deck which also provides a view of the Suzuka mountain range beyond. The ume here bloom from late February to mid-March, with early March offering the best mix of varieties at their peak beauty.

2. Shiroyama Sakura (Shizuoka Prefecture)
Website

As promised, we’ve got some cherry blossoms on the list too. Instead of the Somei Yoshino that bloom in late March or April, the sakura along this 400-meter (1,312-foot) stretch of roadway in Izunokuni, a city at the top of the Izu Peninsula, are Kawazu sakura. Kawazu sakura generally have a darker shade of pink, and they bloom much earlier than other varieties, with mid-February to early March being the best viewing time here.

1. Minami no Sakura to Nanohana Matsuri (Shizuoka Prefecture)
Website

And finally, we’re staying in Shizuoka for Jalan’s top springtime flower spot. At the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula is the town of Minamiizu, where a two-kilometer (1.2-mile) riverside road has not only 800 Kawazu sakura trees, but also fields of nanohana growing between them. Head there on a sunny day between early February and early March, and you’ll get to see the vibrant combination of the flower’s yellow and pink petals with the blue of the sky, and at night the area is illuminated so that after-sundown visitors can enjoy a magical atmosphere too (this year’s light-up runs through March 10).

With flowers being fickle things, they don’t always stick to their standard schedules for coming into bloom, so a quick check of the parks and gardens’ official webpages is a smart idea before heading out to see them. What you can be sure of, though, is that the flowers will bloom at these places every year, and that they’ll all be special memories of your Japan travels if you time your visit right.

Source: Jalan (1, 2), PR Times
Images: PR Times
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