Jindai Botanical Gardens

Jindai Botanical Gardens is a Tokyo metropolitan botanical garden spreading around Jindai-ji Temple in Chofu. It covers about 510,000 square meters and includes a sunken rose garden with fountains, a large greenhouse of tropical plants, a camellia and sasanqua garden and an aquatic plant garden, so there is something in bloom in every season.

Work began in April 1940 under the Tokyo green space plan as "Jindai Ryokuchi", and the garden opened on October 20, 1961. The large greenhouse opened in 1984, the aquatic garden in 1985 and the Plant Biodiversity Center in 2012. The greenhouse was renovated and reopened in 2016.

The rose garden is the highlight: according to the official site about 400 varieties and 5,200 roses grow around the fountains, and it won an Award of Garden Excellence from the World Federation of Rose Societies in 2009. The greenhouse holds about 1,300 kinds of plants, in rooms for tropical flowering trees, orchids, begonias and tropical water lilies, and it also grows the titan arum. The camellia and sasanqua garden has about 250 varieties and 620 plants. The aquatic garden lies southeast of the main garden, across Jindai-ji, in a small valley, and part of the grounds is the designated historic site of Jindaiji Castle.

Seasonal highlights include about 600 cherry trees and 280 varieties of azaleas in spring, hydrangeas, lotus and irises in summer, spider lilies, osmanthus and dahlias in autumn, and plum, camellia and wintersweet in winter. The plum garden has about 70 varieties and blooms from late January to late March.

The garden opens 9:30-17:00 (last entry 16:00; the greenhouse and aquatic garden close at 16:30) and is closed on Mondays and over the New Year. Allow two to three hours. Take a bus from Chofu Station. Nearby, Harmonica Yokocho in Kichijoji is about 4.7 km away and the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum about 7.3 km.