New eBook! Shinjuku Gyoen

It’s done! With the publication of this eBook we finished our „Famous Gardens in Tokyo“ series!
I am so happy about the completion and can now start with my next project: Secret Gardens in Tokyo!
Hopefully, I can complete the second series in a short time as well..

However, now I want to tell you a little bit about Shinjuku Gyoen.

This park has a very special significance. I guess you already heard of Shinjuku, Tokyo’s most lively city (maybe behind Shibuya). Shinjuku Gyoen is the reason for its name!
Yes, Shinjuku was named after a garden and lodging complex established during the Edo period.

This is one very fascinating point of Tokyo. Although it is a fast growing, always modern city, you find traces of its origin everywhere around. Visiting the Moloch with open eyes and open minds, there is so much history to see behind all the skyscrapers and apartment houses.

Anyway… Back to Shinjuku Gyoen. The park’s history is very rich. It starts with the Naitou family, establishing their new lodging in this area. With their land becoming too big to manage for them, they gave a little bit of their grounds in Edo back to the Shogun, but kept the rest until the end of the Edo period. Then the area wandered through several official departments and even the Ministry of Imperial Household, until it was moved to the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment.
Most of the Edo gardens are managed by the Tokyo Park Association. Only four parks in Japan, strongly connected to the Imperial Family, are managed by the Ministry of the Environment.

Although the garden has such a rich history, the landscape design is rather new. It was completed in 1906 after 4 years of construction works.
The Traditional Japanese garden is even newer. It was built during the Showa period (1926-1989) in addition to the Taiwan pavilion.
But although this part of the garden is very new, there is still one part remaining from the original Naitou family garden!

Shinjuku Gyoen can be visited with many different intentions. Families are using it as a place to relax and to picnic. Amateur photographers are going there to take pictures of flowers and birds. Plant lovers are coming to study the appearance of flowers during the seasons and to see rare species inside the greenhouse. Researchers of history are going to see one part of Edo’s past and tourists are visiting it to relax with a little bit of green and to experience the Japanese garden.

This park should be on the bucket list of everyone who loves green and is planning to visit Tokyo for one week or longer!
Especially during autumn you shouldn’t miss the display of the famous Chrysanthemum collection.

See you soon!
Anika

In our eBook, you will find information on every garden highlight with explanations and scenic photographs.
Get your copy of our 17 page eBook about Shinjuku Gyoen, delivered in pdf for only 4.95$!

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If you would like to know more about famous and prized Japanese Chrysanthemum, consider looking into these books: