Manabe Garden
Living Laboratory and Showroom
Manabe Garden is a living laboratory and showroom of flora found in Japanese, Western, and natural landscape gardens. The plants here exemplify a variety of green habitats of special interest to professional landscape designers, gardeners, and developers. Their diverse combinations demonstrate ways to create environments where plants can thrive even in difficult climates.
The grounds are divided into several areas, including the Japanese Garden and carp pond, Rugosa Rose Hill, a conifer forest, the Monster Garden, and an eight-meter-high waterfall and trout pond. The Reverse Border Garden has two sides that are near-mirror images of each other.
The Japanese garden is designed especially for Hokkaido. Most plants found in traditional Japanese gardens cannot survive the frigid Hokkaido winters. Hot spring waters piped into the carp pond at Manabe Garden warm the grounds so that many of the same plants can flourish.
Manabe Garden was the first and also the largest garden to feature conifers: there are hundreds of species, particularly spruce. Many species from colder regions in North America proved adaptable to the Hokkaido climate. These evergreens provide the verdant canvas against which all the other flowering and seasonal plants spread their colors during the warmer months of the year.
Manabe Garden is a universal access facility, and most of the garden is wheelchair accessible. The main path allows all visitors to freely traverse small hills, creeks and waterfalls, elevated observation decks, and rugged forest.
Manabe Garden is open from morning to evening every day between late April and the end of November.