Howaen

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

HowaenhydrangeasMitoJapanese gardenfree entry

Photo: CyberOyaji / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) · original

Howaen rewards patience — the view most people describe isn't the one you get by rushing.

Howaen began as the garden of a temple, was expanded by Tokugawa Mitsukuni in the seventeenth century, and is now a small municipal Japanese garden in a residential part of Mito with a pond, a rise and a lot of hydrangeas — roughly six thousand plants across about a hundred varieties, which is a considerable density for a garden this size.

It is free and permanently open, which is the thing to know. Kairakuen, twenty minutes away, is one of Japan's three great gardens and behaves accordingly; Howaen is where people from Mito actually go, and for most of the year it is a quiet place with a pond in it. For four weeks in June the hydrangea festival brings food stalls, evening lighting and a substantial local crowd, and the adjoining temple grounds fill with people who live within walking distance.

Before you go

Access hours

Open 24 hrs

Closed: Open year-round

Entry fee

Free | No public parking; private lots nearby, temporary parking during the June festival

Best time to visit

Mid–late June for hydrangeas | Year-round as a quiet garden

Time to allow

45–60 minutes

Making the trip

Directions

Mito. By bus from stand 7 at the north exit of JR Mito Station, heading for Ibadai or Watari via Sakaemachi, then get off at Howaen-iriguchi and walk 3 minutes. Free to enter, open at all times. There is no public car park; nearby private lots are used, with temporary parking provided during the June hydrangea festival.

What to bring

**June is the festival, the rest of the year is the garden.** Roughly six thousand hydrangea plants across a hundred varieties peak in the second half of June, with stalls and evening lighting. Outside that month it is an empty pond garden that costs nothing. **There is no car park.** Parking is at private lots nearby except during the festival, when temporary lots are laid on. The bus from Mito Station is the simpler answer. **Walk into the temple grounds too.** Howaen adjoins Zuiryusan Hozoji, and the graveyard behind it holds figures connected with the Mito domain. The two read as a single site. **Pair it with Kairakuen.** The famous garden and its plum grove are twenty minutes away. Doing both shows what a garden built for a lord and a garden used by a neighbourhood each look like.

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