Scattered throughout Fukuoka’s city and residential areas, you’ll find beautiful Japanese gardens that can be visited casually. Each garden, adorned with ponds, stones, trees, and flowers, is designed to highlight different viewing spots where it appears the most beautiful, offering a remarkable spectacle for each season. Whether you’re leisurely strolling to find these spots or quietly sitting and gazing at the garden, it is a soothing experience.
Tips!
Japanese gardens are classified by their design and methods of appreciation. There are mainly three types; it’s handy to know this:
1. Pond Garden (Chisen)
Many of the gardens in Japan are “Chisen”, or Pond Gardens, designed around a central pond. There are gardens enjoyed by boat and strolling gardens where you can walk around.
2. Dry Landscape Garden (Karesansui)
These gardens express ponds or seas through sand and stones, without using water. Such gardens are commonly found within temple grounds.
3. Hill and Pond Garden (Chikuzan Rinsen)
These gardens organically connect various elements such as teahouses, forests, and fields.
Five Representative Gardens in Fukuoka City
Ohori Park Japanese Garden
Located within the popular Ohori Park, an oasis for citizens, the Ohori Park Japanese Garden opened in 1984 to celebrate the park’s 50th anniversary. This garden, designed in the hill and pond strolling style, was crafted by Kinsaku Nakane, a renowned Japanese landscape artist who also designed gardens for the Adachi Museum of Art and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. With its extensive area of about 1.2ha, the garden, surrounded by white plaster walls and trees, offers numerous attractions.
The garden is designed around a large pond with a backdrop of artificial hills. It features three different waterfalls, a dry landscape garden, and a teahouse in sukiya style. It is arranged for visitors to stroll around through garden paths. As it’s located right in the city, you should definitely visit it while walking in Ohori Park.
Ohori Park Japanese Garden
• Open: 9:00~18:00 (May-Sep), 9:00~17:00 (last entry 15 mins before closing)
• Closed: Mondays (or the next day if a holiday), Dec 29 ~ Jan 3
• Entrance Fee: ¥250, under 15s ¥120, free for under 6 and over 65
• Location: 1-7 Ohori Koen, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City
• Website: https://www.ohoriteien.jp/en/
Shofuen
Nestled in a quiet residential area, Shofuen was originally the residence of Zenpachi Tanakamaru, the founder of Fukuoka’s department store “Fukuoka Tamaya” (closed in 1999). Tanaka, a tea lover, hired famous sukiya craftsmen from Kyoto and collected materials to build a formal teahouse “Shofuan” and a spacious hall in 1952. These were preserved and renovated to open as Shofuen to the public in 2007.
The garden includes a tea-ceremony ground, depicting Mount Fuji and Suruga Bay, an Iroha maple over 100 years old, and Ayabe stone lanterns. The Natsume lantern, carved with tea utensils, is a unique and valuable item only found here. The garden offers a matcha service for ¥500 (including sweets), allowing you to relax while admiring the garden.
Photograph provided by Fukuoka City.
Shofuen
• Open: 9:00~17:00
• Closed: Tuesdays (or the next day if a holiday), Dec 29 ~ Jan 1. *Open on Jan 2, Jan 3, May 4, May 5.
• Entrance Fee: ¥100, ¥50 for junior high school students and below
• Location: 3-28 Hirao, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City
• Website: https://shofuen.fukuoka-teien.com/
Rakusuien
Located in an office district, just a ten-minute walk from Hakata Station, you will find Rakusuien. This garden is on the site of Sumiyoshi Villa, built in 1906 by a Hakata merchant, Shimozawa Zenemon Chikamasa. Zenemon, also known by his elegant pseudonym “Rakusui”, enjoyed tea ceremonies in his teahouse named “Rakusuian”. After the war, the location was used as an inn, but it reopened as Rakusuien in 1995.
The first thing you will notice is the Hakata Wall at the entrance, which originated from burnt stones and tiles hardened with clay during Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s post-war reconstruction of Hakata. The Japanese garden is a pond-stroll style, featuring a waterfall lined with natural stones and nature that changes with the seasons. In one corner of the garden, there is a suikinkutsu, a water cave. It is designed for enjoying the echoing sound of dripping water, made in a hollow under a water basin for hand-cleansing. If you listen closely, you can hear a faint sound. If “Rakusuian,” the replica of Zenemon’s teahouse, is not in use for a tea ceremony, you can enjoy matcha tea with a sweet for ¥500.
Photograph provided by Fukuoka City.
Photograph provided by Fukuoka City.
Rakusuien
• Open: 9:00~17:00
• Closed: Tuesdays (if it falls on a holiday, it will close the next day), Dec 29 ~ Jan 1. *Open on Jan 2, Jan 3, May 4, May 5.
• Entrance Fee: ¥100, ¥50 for middle school students and under
• Location: 2-10-7 Sumiyoshi, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka City
• Website: http://rakusuien.fukuoka-teien.com/
Yusentei Park
Built in the mid-Edo period (1754) by Tsugutaka Kuroda, the 6th feudal lord of Fukuoka, Yusentei was once a villa. Part of it has been restored and maintained as a Japanese garden and was opened as “Yusentei Park” in 1981. The park, about 1 ha in size, is filled with plants surrounding a pond and was registered as a scenic spot by Fukuoka City in 1998.
The main building, built in the early Showa period, overlooks the pond from a spacious 17.5-mat room, offering stunning views of nature in every season. You can spend a leisurely time in the open space while enjoying matcha tea with a sweet for ¥500. The corridor of the large room, the red carpet, and the panoramic view of the Japanese garden provide the perfect spot for taking pictures.
As you walk along the trail in the park, you will encounter a symbol tree over 300 years old, a waterfall, lanterns, and other elements that evoke a traditional Japanese ambiance. There are also things related to the Kuroda family, such as “Jousuian”, a thatched-roof house named after the founder of Fukuoka Clan, Kuroda Josui.
Photograph provided by Fukuoka City.
Yusentei Park
• Open: 9:00~17:00
• Closed: Mondays (if it falls on a holiday, it will close the next day), Dec 29 ~ Jan 1. *Open on Jan 2, Jan 3, May 4, May 5.
• Entrance Fee: ¥200, ¥100 for middle school students and under
• Location: 1-46 Yusentei, Jonan Ward, Fukuoka City
• Website: https://yusentei.fukuoka-teien.com/
Takamiya Minami Green Park & Former Takamiya Kaijima Residence
Located in a quiet residential area close to the Nishitetsu “Takamiya” station is the urban park “Takamiya Minami Green Park”. Opened in April 2022, it was developed on the grounds of the former residence of the Kaijima family, who made their fortune in coal mining in the Chikuho region of Fukuoka Prefecture. The park, rich in greenery and occupying about 1.9 ha, contains the over-100-year-old “Former Takamiya Kaijima Residence,” a valuable traditional building registered as a cultural property by Fukuoka City. The facility is operated as “Takamiya Teien Saryo” and can be used as a restaurant or café. Additionally, a new music hall and guesthouse have been built, which can be used as wedding or party venues.
Walking trails are established within the grounds, allowing you to take a leisurely stroll around the garden while admiring the trees of different seasons. There is also an authentic tea room preserved on the premises.
Takamiya Minami Green Park & Former Takamiya Kaijima Residence
• Open: 9:00~17:00
• Closed: Mondays (if it falls on a holiday, it will close the next day), New Year’s holidays
• Entrance Fee: Free
• Location: 5-16-1 Takamiya, Minami Ward, Fukuoka City
• Website: https://park.takamiyagarden.com/
