Tokyo · Nature

Best Garden in Tokyo

29 places, each checked by our team.

• Akatsuka Botanical Garden 赤塚植物園Akatsuka — A free, hillside botanical garden on the edge of the Musashino plateau, with a Man'yoshu garden of plants from ancient poetry, a woodland of native…
• Former Yasuda Kusuo House and Garden 旧安田楠雄邸庭園Sendagi — 1919 merchant residence in Sendagi with a mossy Japanese garden, open twice a week by the Japan National Trust.
• Fukiage Iris Park 吹上しょうぶ公園Higashi-Ome / Ome — Valley iris garden in Ome where over 250 varieties of Japanese iris bloom each June against a backdrop of wooded hills.
• Hama-rikyu Gardens 浜離宮恩賜庭園Shiodome / Tsukiji — A former shogun's duck-hunting and falconry estate on Tokyo Bay, where a tidal seawater pond and island teahouse sit against the glass towers of…
• Happo-en Garden 八芳園 日本庭園Shirokanedai — A 'beautiful from eight directions' Edo-era garden in Shirokanedai, with a koi pond, 500-year-old bonsai and a teahouse, free to walk, yet known…
• Higo Hosokawa Garden 肥後細川庭園Mejirodai — A free, hillside stroll garden built on the former estate of the Hosokawa lords of Kumamoto, where a pond garden sits beneath a forested slope and a…
• Horikiri Iris Garden 堀切菖蒲園Horikiri — An Edo-era iris garden painted by Hiroshige, with some 6,000 clumps of 200 varieties of Japanese iris blooming purple and white in June, free, local…
• Ikegami Baien Plum Garden 池上梅園Ikegami — A hillside garden below Ikegami Honmon-ji with about 370 plum trees of 30 varieties, a pond and two tea houses, one of Tokyo's loveliest spots in…
• Jindai Botanical Gardens 神代植物公園Jindaiji / Chofu — Large metropolitan botanical garden beside Jindaiji Temple, known for its formal rose garden and big tropical greenhouse.
• Keio Mogusaen 京王百草園Hino / Mogusaen — Hillside Japanese garden dating from the early 18th century, famed for about 500 plum trees and views over the Tama River plain.
• Kiyosumi Gardens 清澄庭園Kiyosumi-Shirakawa — A serene Meiji-era pond garden built by Mitsubishi's founder, with prized stones shipped from all over Japan and a stepping-stone path across the…
• Koishikawa Botanical Garden 小石川植物園Hakusan — Japan's oldest botanical garden, a 1684 shogunate herb garden now run by the University of Tokyo, with a descendant of Newton's apple tree, Mendel's…
• Koishikawa Korakuen 小石川後楽園Korakuen / Iidabashi — Tokyo's oldest surviving daimyo garden (1629), a compact masterpiece of miniature landscapes, a full-moon bridge, a crimson Tsutenkyo bridge and…
• Koiwa Iris Garden 小岩菖蒲園Kita-Koiwa — A free iris garden on the Edogawa riverbank in Kita-Koiwa with around 50,000 irises of 100 varieties, viewed from wooden walkways; a quieter…
• Kyu-Furukawa Gardens 旧古河庭園Nishigahara — A stone Western mansion by Josiah Conder above terraced rose gardens, stepping down to a Japanese pond garden by Ogawa Jihei, two worlds in one…
• Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens 旧芝離宮恩賜庭園Hamamatsucho — A compact 17th-century daimyo strolling garden right next to Hamamatsucho station, its tidal-turned-freshwater pond ringed by stone islands and…
• Kyu-Yasuda Garden 旧安田庭園Ryogoku — A free Edo-period stroll garden hidden directly behind the Ryogoku Kokugikan sumo hall, a pond once fed by the tides of the Sumida River, stone…
• Machida Dahlia Garden 町田ダリア園Machida — Hillside garden in Machida with some 500 varieties of dahlia, run as a social-welfare workplace and open from early summer to autumn.
• Makino Memorial Garden 牧野記念庭園Oizumi-gakuen / Nerima — The home garden of Makino Tomitaro, the father of Japanese botany, preserved a few minutes from Oizumi-gakuen Station. It is a small, free woodland…
• Meguro Sky Garden 目黒天空庭園Ohashi / Ikejiri-Ohashi — A sloping, 400 m loop of gardens, orchards and benches built on the roof of a coiled expressway junction, eleven storeys up, with views toward Mount…
• Mohri Garden (Roppongi Hills) 毛利庭園Roppongi — Edo-style pond garden tucked between Roppongi Hills Mori Tower and TV Asahi, on the site of a daimyo residence.
• Mukojima Hyakkaen Garden 向島百花園Higashi-Mukojima — A 1804 garden created by an antique dealer and his poet friends as a "garden of a hundred flowers", wild, grassy and poetic rather than manicured,…
• Rikugien Garden 六義園Komagome — Edo Tokyo's most refined stroll garden, laid out in 1702 to evoke 88 scenes from classical waka poetry, famous for its weeping cherry in spring and…
• Roka Koshun-en 蘆花恒春園Kasuya / Setagaya — The wooded former home of the Meiji novelist Tokutomi Roka, who left the city in 1907 to live as a gentleman farmer. His thatched cottages are…
• Shibamata Yamamoto-tei 柴又 山本亭Shibamata — A Taisho-era house mixing Japanese and Western rooms around a classic garden with a waterfall, consistently ranked among the top Japanese gardens by…
• Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden 新宿御苑Shinjuku — A 58-hectare former imperial garden blending French formal, English landscape and Japanese traditional styles, Tokyo's finest cherry-blossom park,…
• Tonogayato Garden 殿ヶ谷戸庭園Kokubunji — A hidden Taisho-era villa garden right by Kokubunji Station. A lawn on the cliff top drops into a ravine of bamboo, maples and a spring-fed pond. It…
• Ueno Toshogu Peony Garden 上野東照宮ぼたん苑Ueno Park — Small stroll garden beside Ueno Toshogu Shrine that opens three times a year for winter peonies, spring peonies and autumn dahlias.
• Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome 夢の島熱帯植物館Yumenoshima — Three glass domes of tropical jungle, waterfalls, giant water lilies and bananas, heated with energy from a waste-incineration plant, on a former…