Hagi Festival

You must be wondering, what’s hagi? Well, it’s the Japanese name for bush clover.

What happens?

It might sound like a strange plant to have a festival for, but the event is more about enjoying Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens and its variety of beautiful fall plants.

From the get-go, visitors walk through a long tunnel of hagi, grown on a 30-meter-long bamboo frame. Aki no nanakusa (‘seven wild flowers of fall’) are also in bloom for your viewing pleasure.

The gardens are a nationally recognized scenic and historic park built during the Bunka-Bunsei period (1804-1830) by an antique merchant, Kiku Sahara, and his friends.

Schedule

As part of the event, which runs for over two weeks, there’s plenty of activities to get involved in:

• Haiku writing: Visitors are invited to write their own hagi-themed poem on strips of paper at a station within the park grounds.
• Tea ceremony: Tea ceremonies will be held by the garden’s tea ceremony committee on September 20 and 21 from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Each ceremony lasts around 30 minutes and participation costs ¥1,000. Capacity for each ceremony is 10 people, and you can register in person until 3:30 p.m. each day.
• Wildflower tour: A local botanist will guide visitors on the various flowers that bloom within the gardens. Tours last for around one hour and will be held on September 20 at 11:40 a.m. and 2:40 p.m.
• Raku ware pottery experience: On September 27 and 28 you’ll have the opportunity to paint and take home Sumidagawa ware, a style of pottery that used to be produced at the garden. A stall will be set up from 9:30 a.m. each day, and each piece costs ¥1,200 to paint and take home.