For anyone needing a beautiful break from busy Tokyo, Jindai Botanical Gardens Rose Festival 2020 was the perfect escape. 5200 rose plants of 400 different types were there to recharge you. With so much color around them, flower photographers weren’t disappointed.
A perfect autumn day in 2020
Under the warm sun and beautiful skies, I took about four hundred pictures. After a particularly rainy year, the incredible weather that autumn day felt like a gift, making the experience even more memorable.
With so many English and international roses to look at, time flew by in an instant. Jindai is no simple backyard rose garden. The staff put in many hours looking after it.
Another English garden in Tokyo
It is a genuinely lovely place to walk around. The garden is a huge rectangle with a greenhouse at one end and a covered patio-type area at the other. In the middle are some fountains. The roses get the rest of the space! It truly feels like a classic English garden transported to Tokyo. This meticulous design and the sheer scale of the collection are why, without a doubt, Jindai has the best rose garden in the city.
Plants and expert advice
Jindai isn’t only about looking at the flowers. There are stalls too that sell rose plants. If you are lucky, you’ll find some staff who speak English and can offer advice about caring for roses.
A flower photography Mecca
I wasn’t the only one captivated by the scenery; serious photographers were everywhere. I know only too well how much the Japanese like photography and garden roses! They seemed so serious about the event.
My photography gear for this event
I used my trusty Fujifilm X-T2 with two lenses. One was the versatile Fujifilm XF 16-55mm F2.8 for capturing the grand, sweeping views of the garden beds, while the Fujifilm XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 was perfect for isolating individual roses and achieving that beautiful, blurred background. It was easy to spend hours lost in the pursuit of the perfect shot.
An alternative: Kyu-Furukawa Gardens
While Jindai is my personal favorite for its sheer scale and botanical focus, photographers should also consider Kyu-Furukawa Gardens. There, the elegant Western-style mansion by Josiah Conder offers a completely different, yet equally stunning, backdrop for rose photography. Ultimately, the choice depends on the kind of beauty you hope to capture.
Read my full articles about [Jindai Botanical Gardens] for full information including how to get there and what to expect. And if you have been there, let me know what you think about it in the comments.
