Omiya Bonsai Village - October 2024

nathan987 · Post by **nathan987** » October 25th, 2024, 6:55 pm

I’ve just returned from a two week trip to Japan with the family. It was action-packed, so I only got one opportunity to get my bonsai fix.

I chose to go to Omiya bonsai village, as I hadn’t been before, whereas I had previously been to some of the other potential spots on my list.

Omiya is really easy to get to from Tokyo on the train. Frankly, I just used Apple Maps to search for locations, directions and train connections and it worked perfectly.

The only thing that I pre-planned was a village map. If you Google ‘Omiya Bonsai Village map’, you’ll find a few different ones to choose from. I used the one from here - https://whenin.tokyo/Omiya-Bonsai-Villa ... e-Day-Trip. I used this page to identify the open gardens - https://omiyabonsai.jp. You don’t need to be too fussed about the maps being a bit vague and not having every street marked. It is a very small area and you can criss-cross and find what you want if you take a wrong turn. There are essentially two main streets that run north-ish to south-ish - Momiji-dori (Japanese Maple Street) and Kaede-dori (Trident Maple Street). Other than street signs, they each have a tile of the relevant tree fixed into the footpath at the start and end of each street.

You can either get off at Toro Station (which I did), at the top end of the village, or Omiya-Koen station (where I ended and from where I got the train back to Tokyo) at the bottom end of the village. Each is on a separate train line. In truth, it doesn’t matter which you choose. You will likely end up traversing the village and ending up at the other one at the end of your walk in any event.

Food-wise, there’s a convenience store just across the road from Toro. And the Bonsai Cafe is on your way from Toro to the closest location, The Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. There’s also a convenience store just near Omiya-Koen and there are a few local restaurants around the station.

So, first stop out of Toro Station was The Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. It is spectacular. The collection is from what was the old Takagi Bonsai Museum. The trees displayed (which I assume rotates) are all in prime condition. This is a specimen display museum, not a working nursery or garden. Everything is wonderfully spaced out, so that each tree has the space that it deserves and you can really just focus in on one tree at a time, with no distractions. There are no photos allowed in the formal seasonal display hall (about 6-8 primary trees displayed as three point displays and/or in tokonoma) or in the gallery room (which had a couple of pots and some bonsai-themed woodblock prints when I went). It’s open season for pics in the main display area!

I read somewhere that it was going to be closed from late 2024 into 2025 for renovations. It looked pristine, so I can’t imagine what they need to fix - but best to check if you are heading over during that time.

Next stop was Mansei-en - This is regarded as the ‘star’ nursery. In short, this nursery had an overwhelming, gratuitous number of big, ancient, awe-inspiring trees. It was almost grotesque to see so many prize-worthy or future prize-worthy trees absolutely crammed to bursting on the shelves. Everything was jammed in so tight, some parts were inaccessible. You definitely get your ‘blockbuster’ hit here.

Next was Seiko-en - this is a much smaller, intimate collection. Practically everything on display was in display condition, so it was more of a display collection rather than a nursery set-up. They’d set it up so that there was a sort of guided pathway through the collection. Whilst not knock-your socks-off like Mansei-en, the trees were all amazing quality, but a relatively small collection.

Next was Toju-en - This nursery was smaller, like Seiko-en. But it had a lot of smaller and developing trees as well as the larger more advanced ones. So the trees were of a different scale, which was a nice change of pace. There were still plenty of impressive pines and junipers etc.

Next was Shotou-en - This one seems to have fallen off the official list of gardens, but still appears on some online maps. It is very small. More like someone’s garden, with a small selection of young trees and starters. Really, not much there and you wouldn’t be missing out on anything if you skipped it.

Next planned was Kyuka-en - But their gate was closed and, although unlocked, no one was there. So, I assumed that they weren’t open and didn’t go in.

Last was Fuyo-en - I started my trip at Tora Station partly because, from what I read, I really wanted to visit the first three stops and the rest were on the ‘if you have time’ list. I am so, so glad that I didn’t skip this, as it was my favourite after the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. This garden has lots of high quality medium-sized bonsai and far more deciduous species compared to pines and junipers. They had a large number of Prunus, which would be amazing when flowering. They had some Trident Maples with the smallest leaves I’ve ever seen. This was a really amazing quality collection. Every tree was a perfectly formed gem. The more modest size and the fact that they weren’t 350+ year old unattainable yamadori almost fooled me into thinking that maybe I could achieve a collection like this one day (I hadn’t eaten and was also probably dehydrated by this point, hence the hallucinatory thoughts). If you gave me $100K to go shopping, this is where I’d come.

Note, all of the gardens had ‘no photo’ signs and I did see one of the employees go up and ask a person who was ignoring the signs to stop taking photos. It seems that bonsai theft is on the rise and they all take the ‘no photo’ thing seriously. I even saw a sign up on someone’s gate about a local community bonsai theft prevention group.

My overall take-away is that this is absolutely worth the trip. I’ve been to Shunka-en and it is amazing, spectacular. But if you can only squirrel away one day or half-day to yourself, this gives you the best bang for your buck. But, I (think) I went to Kinashi bonsai village (a day trip from Kyoto) waaaaaaay back in 2008. My hazy recollection was that Kinashi had more of a ‘bonsai nursery’ vibe e.g. growing fields, larger nurseries, larger variety of trees of varying states of development etc. Omiya is more a collection of display gardens, rather than ‘nurseries’. So, if you want the nursery experience, Kinashi is a great option.

Fyr, places that were on my list but which I didn’t manage to get the time to visit were:

Kyoto
- Hoshun-in temple
- Kinashi bonsai village (day trip from Kyoto, or Osaka)

Tokyo
-Shunka-en bonsai museum
- Tradman’s Maranouchi bonsai store

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nathan987 · Post by **nathan987** » October 25th, 2024, 7:00 pm

Following are my pics from The Omiya Bonsai Art Museum, the only place that allowed photos. This isn’t all of the trees that were on display, just the ones that I liked most.