Tokyo Imperial Palace Ninomaru Garden
Tokyo Imperial Palace Ninomaru Gardens (東御苑の二の丸庭園)
The third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, established the central government in Edo and asked Kobori Enshū to create a garden in the Ninomaru 二の丸 – Second Compound of the Edo castle. Here, Iemitsu planned to build his second palace, the Ninomaru Goten at the area of today’s small grove.
It was assembled with a teahouse and some other pleasure buildings. However, fires repeatedly destroyed the gardens, but during the reign of the ninth shogun Tokugawa Ieshige, plans of the garden were drawn. These plans survived until today and were used to reconstruct the garden in the 1960’s.
This garden is famous for:
- The iris fields
- The azalea blossoms
- The special koi carp variety bred by a previous emperor
- The huge stone walls
- The tree collection from all over Japan
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- Tree peony near the teahouse in the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
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- Iris fields in spring in the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
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- The large teahouse in the garden of the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
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- Winter scene at the pond of the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
More information and a digital guidebook are available on the website of Real Japanese Gardens.