Mocha Pinku
- Apr 3
- 2 min read

Weeping Cherry Blossom Tree at Rikugien Gardens

in Bunkyo, Tokyo

The weeping cherry blossoms tree at Rikugien Gardens started to bloom this past weekend. Rikugien Gardens is a located in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. It was created by Yoshiyasu Tanagisawa, during the Edo period, and was eventually donated to the government in the 1930s. The garden is based off of 88 scenes from 6 classical Chinese poems. Currently only 32 scenes remain. The garden is a popular spot for cherry blossom and autumn leaves viewing. The park takes around an hour to walk around and has various winding trails that go through forests, lakes, and manicured lawns.

My Experience

We visited Rikugien Gardens in the last weekend of March, when their large weeping cherry blossom tree or shidarezakura just started to bloom. Cherry blossom season was delayed a couple weeks this year, so many of the more common variety of cherry blossom trees hadn't even bloomed in the garden. However, shidarezakura are known for blooming slightly earlier than the common variety. It was one of two cherry blossom trees in bloom in the park. It was also featured on the news!

The weeping cherry blossom tree is right near the entrance of the park. We stayed for a bit to take pictures and admire the shidarezakura tree. I think it will probably be in full bloom by the middle of the first week in April! The tree was very large and beautiful! It was planted over 70 years ago and is over 20 meters tall! After viewing the tree we spent about an hour walking around the park. Most of the flowers weren't in yet bloom yet but the park was very peaceful and green, which was nice. The weather was also lovely! There are small rivers winding through the gardens filled with maple trees. The green maple leaves were just starting to come in! I can imagine it would be a beautiful place to view in autumn as well.