A Guest Blog from a Visit to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Japan
Whenever friends, family, and colleagues travel, I always encourage them to take lots of photos - it's fun to see images from others taken during their vacations.
Recently, our own Marquee Brands VP of Creative Services, Ryan Mesina, shared pictures from his trip to Japan in November 2024. Ryan, along with his partner, his mother, and his sister, traveled there to visit Ryan's niece who was studying in Tokyo. Among their stops was the historic Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. Once the residence of the Naitō family in the Edo period, it is now a public space filled with more than 20 thousand different trees and at least 1700 tropical and subtropical plant species. At the time, the family went specifically to see the chrysanthemums - beautiful in color, artistic design, Japanese history, and cultural significance.
Here are some of Ryan's photos, enjoy.
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- Both my mother and I are avid gardeners, and while Japan is filled with countless culinary, cultural, and horticultural wonders, visiting the chrysanthemums at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was at the top of our lists. Here we are on the morning of our first day in Tokyo, excited to start exploring.
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- Located in the heart of Tokyo, the garden provided some much welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of the city. The exhibition featured seven huts, called Uwaya, that are specifically used to display these meticulously grown chysanthemums. They are similar to the “theaters” popular in 19th century England used to display auricula primroses. Each of these seven Uwaya showcased specific varieties and methods of training chrysanthemums. The first one we encountered was dedicated to the Kengai style, also known as the cascade style, first created in 1915.
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- Chrysanthmums grown in the Kengai style are elevated on wooden pedestals and are meant to evoke the look of wild chysanthemums on a cliffside.
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- The exhibition was spread across the Japanese Garden, with the Uwaya arranged around a large central pond. Shown here are the impressive Ozikuri, or thousand bloom chrysanthemums, which make an impression even from across the water.
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- Each massive pot holds a single plant, meticulously trained over the course of a year to produce hundreds of blooms, with each perfectly positioned so the whole resembles an even dome.
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- If you look closely, you can see the single stem that produced this entire Ozukuri. Also visible is the intricate frame used to train and support the plant.
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- Here I am with the Ogiku or large-flowered chrysanthemums. Each plant was trained to support just one single jumbo flower. So you have some sense of scale, I am nearly 6’3″ – these blooms were massive!
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- Ogiku are characterized by incurved petals that form a puffy flower and are traditionally arranged in diagonal stripes referred to as Tazuna-ue, or horse bridle style, because they resemble the pattern on horse bridles used in Shinto ceremony.
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- They typically come in pink, yellow, white, red, purple, orange, and variegated.
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- Similar to the Ogiku are two large-flowered styles called Ichimonji and Kudamono. Ichimonji chrysanthemums are characterized by single-blooming flowers with large petals, while Kudamono resemble spiders with their long, thin, straight tubular petals. Notice how the flowers are so broad they each need a round support under the flower heads to keep them from flopping.
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- The blooms can be more than six-inches in diameter and are often flat in appearance.
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- Here is a large, delicate Kudamono-giku. They’re called spider chrysanthemums, but look to me like they’d be right at home next to a sea anemone at the bottom of the ocean.
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- Ichimonji resemble the crest of the Japanese Imperial family.
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- As you can imagine, the exhibition was a big draw for garden and photo enthusiasts alike. Here are shutterbugs admiring the Edo varieties.
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- Characterized by medium-sized blooms with classical form that change in appearance as they open, each plant is trained to produce exactly 27 blooms.
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- This traditional display practice has been passed down through generations from the 18th and 19th centuries to showcase the beauty of the flowers.
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- In japan, the chrysanthemum is deeply rooted in culture and history. The flower symbolizes longevity, rejuvenation, and nobility.
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- Here in this tent – Ise, Saga, and Choji varieties are displayed. Choji are trained to display one central bloom that is encircled by six others.
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- Choji chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum moriforium cv. Choujigiku, is a medium-sized chrysanthemum with a raised flower center – very anemone-like blooms.
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- Higo varieties are characterized by medium-flowered, single blooms and were grown by samurai as a way of practicing discipline.
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- After our relaxing day in the garden, we were ready to dive into the madness of Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood! If you’re lucky enough to be in Japan right now, the show is currently up until November 15th at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. If you’re stateside, check out “Kiku: Spotlight on Tradition” currently at the New York Botanical Garden until November 16th, or head to Pennsylvania’s Longwood Gardens for the Chrysanthemum Festival, also on display until November 16th.
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