About Manabe Garden
A Grand Experiment in Greenery
Manabe Garden is a living laboratory and showroom of flora that draws professional landscape designers, gardeners, developers, and others. They come to see a living, ever-evolving display of greenery that reveals both artistic intent and how plants from diverse climates can thrive together in the right conditions.
Garden Array
The grounds are divided into several areas, including the Japanese Garden and carp pond, the Reverse Border Garden, Rugosa Rose Hill, a conifer garden, the Monster Garden, and an eight-meter waterfall and trout pond.
The Japanese Garden is exceptional in the context of the Hokkaido Garden Way. Most of the plants found in traditional Japanese gardens cannot survive the frigid winters here. But at Manabe Garden, onsen (hot spring) waters are piped into the carp pond to warm the grounds and ensure that the plants here thrive.
Illusions and Monsters
The Reverse Border Garden has two sides that are near-mirror images of each other. Even this is an illusion, since the two sides contain plants of the same species in two colors, alternating in a way that creates optical symmetry. Elsewhere, plants of the same species but of different heights are arranged so that the flowers and branches can be seen from one end down the entire row.
The Monster Garden features oddly shaped dwarf trees that twist and bend in every direction. These trees may not seem odd individually, but together they have an unsettling visual effect.
The Conifer Garden
Manabe Garden has the first conifer garden ever cultivated in Japan, which is also the largest. There are hundreds of these evergreens, spruce in particular. Although many originated in cooler parts of North America, they have been able to adapt to survive even the deep winters of Hokkaido. Since conifers are evergreens, they present a green canvas on which all of the other flowering and seasonal plants paint their colors during the warmer seasons.
The trees themselves are an important part of the catalogue of plants that Manabe Garden provides for their customers. They also provide the garden cover from heavy wind, shade, and a lush forest setting.
Squirrels and Artworks
The garden has a wooden deck near the eight-meter waterfall built around two white birch trees, like an open-air treehouse. At around six meters high, it provides a very different perspective on the flowers and plants below and among the trees.
Following the Rabbit Trail will take visitors around the entire garden in about an hour. And speaking of wildlife, the garden provides shelter for many animals. A lattice of logs near the rose garden and an outdoor sculpture gallery is designed as a play area for wild Ezo squirrels, a species native to Hokkaido.
Scattered throughout the landscape are works of art, some carved from logs using power saws. There are also other wooden decks and structures, including a teahouse that is opened on special occasions for traditional tea ceremonies.
Other Key Details
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 early morning to evening every day between late April and the end of November. Please follow this link [link to What to Do page] to find out what you can do at Manabe Garden.