Less than an hour from downtown Tokyo, this neighborhood with a rich bonsai history is a beautiful spot for a little miniature tranquility.

Japanese culture has long embraced the philosophy that things don’t necessarily have to be big in order to be beautiful, and some of the truest examples of that are bonsai trees. And if you’re looking for some of the best examples of just how much beauty there can be in Japan’s gardening tradition of intricately cared for miniature trees, you’ll find them at the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum.

Located in Saitama City, the museum is a little less than an hour north of downtown Tokyo. Even before you get to the museum itself, though, you’ll already be walking through a bit of bonsai history.

We stumbled into this entirely by accident while exploring the town, when we looked on a local guide map and saw…

…that there’s a whole neighborhood, stretching west from Omiya Koen Station, called “Bonsai Village!”

▼ 盆栽村 = Bonsai Village

In 1923, Tokyo was devastated by a huge earthquake. Among those displaced by the devastation were bonsai cultivators and gardeners who’s been living in the capital, and many of them relocated to Saitama. At one point, it was even said that owning/growing at least 10 bonsai trees was a prerequisite for securing housing in the neighborhood.

Today, there are still a number of bonsai nurseries located in the neighborhood, who not only raise and sell the trees, but purchase them too. If properly cared for, bonsai can have very long lives, sometimes outliving their original owners, and if none of their heirs are able to take care of the plants, the nurseries will buy them so that they don’t get thrown out.

That love of plant life manifests itself in the neighborhood’s landscaping as well, as there’s a huge variety of even non-bonsai trees on and in the area’s streets, parks, and plazas, with some very nice pines in particular that we passed by.

The highlight of Omiya’s Bonsai Village, though, is the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum.

With a modest admission fee of just 310 yen (US$2.15), the entry barrier is about as low as it can be, so we purchased a ticket and stepped on inside to what it turns out is a museum that’s very welcoming even to complete newbies.

Aside from the indoor sections, the museum also has a lovely open-air bonsai garden, which displays a rotating selection from their collection of trees, picked according to the season. There are always 70 or so trees in total on display at the museum, and guidance is offered in both English and Japanese, including advice on how to look at bonsai.

The first suggestion we were given was to look at the bonsai straight-on. That might seem obvious, but we did it anyway, and taking a few extra moments to really appreciate the various twists and turns of their branches, the coloring of their bark, and the expressive angles of their needles and leaves did help us appreciate them on a deeper level.

But where things really got cool was when we followed the second point of advice, which is to look up at the bonsai from below. This isn’t something that we’d have thought to do on our own, given their small size, but when we did…

…the new perspective gave the trees a whole new character. From this angle, there’s a new, augmented dynamism to how the roots break free from the soil and the branches stretch towards the sky. Viewed from directly ahead or above, bonsai often appear cute, but seen from below, they’re awesome.

Seeing so many bonsai in the same place also drives home just how different one tree can be from another, and how much their atmosphere can be affected by the pot and stones they’re paired with. Some compositions look like miniature forests…

…while others blossom in a way that almost feels like you’re looking at giant flowers, not a small tree.

Photography is freely allowed in the open-air section, so feel free to snap away and pose by your favorite bonsai to your heart’s content. In the indoor areas you’ll find more trees on display, as well as paintings of bonsai, and the museum also offers periodic workshops, some with English instruction, where you can get hand-on instruction in the bonsai basics of how to care for and shape the trees.

Though we ended up at the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum on this day entirely by chance, our timing was still pretty lucky. The museum opened in 2010, but was closed between last November and late March of this year for renovation work.

As mentioned above, the museum periodically holds workshops and other special events, such as after-dark light-ups of the garden. Some of these require advance reservations, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the museum’s official website to see what’s coming up, but even if you end up visiting the place entirely on a whim, like we did, it’s a beautiful experience.

Location information
Omiya Bonsai Art Museum / 大宮盆栽美術館
Address: Saitama-ken, Saitama-chi, Kita-ku, Toro-cho 2-24-3
埼玉県さいたま市北区土呂町２丁目２４−３
Open 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. (March-October), 9 a.m.-4 p.m. (November-February)
Admission: 310 yen
Website

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