A visit to Daitoku-ji Temple Bonsai Garden, Kyoto, 03/31/23

[pandacular]

Hi all, I'm new here and come with an offering of many pictures from my visit to Daitoku-ji Temple's bonsai garden in Kyoto. Daitoku-ji is a large temple complex, even by Kyoto's standards, with many different gardens, but I only had time to spend time in this one. My visit was on March 30th, 2023.

I'm not a great photographer and the sun was high overhead, so lighting was not at its best, but I hope you enjoy them nonetheless.

Before even entering the proper garden, they had quite a few lovely trees. I especially like the rock planted forests. These were not included in the program, but had small tags that I believe indicated age and species.





detail shot of the same tree



my favorite of the trees on the walk into the garden


that completes the trees outside of the garden. I'll add the main garden trees in a follow-up in this thread

 

[FreshAirSunshine]

Beautiful shots! Welcome!

 

[Hartinez]

Very kind of you to take the time to upload these shots as a new member to the site. Thank you.

 

[pandacular]

Very kind of you to take the time to upload these shots as a new member to the site. Thank you.

Well, I don't have any beautiful trees of my own to post...but give me a few years!

At some point, I'll post some of my own trees as well, but for now I'll carry on sharing these ones.

 

[pandacular]

getting into the main part of the garden now!

Pinus paviflora (JWP), est 180 years old

 

[pandacular]

another white pine, estimated to be 250 years old. Apologies for the lack of a true front shot here

 

[BonsaiDTLA]

Gorgeous trees. I bet they're even more awesome in person. Thanks for sharing

 

[Carol 83]

Beautiful trees, thanks for sharing.

 

[Carol 83]

Gorgeous trees. I bet they're even more awesome in person. Thanks for sharing

Dang we were typing at exactly the same time!

 

[BonsaiDTLA]

Dang we were typing at exactly the same time!

Great minds think alike Also, I totally missed you hitting the 10,000 mark, wasn't on BNut much then working too much. Anyhow... Congrats!! -- the custom title is really great!

 

[pandacular]

I haven't even shown the heavy hitters yet, saving those for last.

here's a really lovely sakura, right at the tail end of peak bloom.


Really can never get enough sakura. We planned our trip around seeing them in bloom and it certainly did not disappoint. This is one of most humble trees in the garden from a bonsai perspective, but it's really wonderful.

 

[pandacular]

Speaking of sakura, I'll happily derail my own thread to post my favorite pictures of me with them. I took well over 100 hundred pictures of various sakura trees on the trip. I think it's really lovely how ouch care the Japanese give to trees, perhaps as an extension of the love of bonsai.

 

[Carol 83]

Great minds think alike Also, I totally missed you hitting the 10,000 mark, wasn't on BNut much then working too much. Anyhow... Congrats!! -- the custom title is really great!

Thanks! As usual, the head nut bestowed my new title. Pretty much fits, I think.

 

[pandacular]

the garden had some seriously monstrous trees, like these two white pines, 200 and 250 years old respectively

 

[pandacular]

they had a bunch of awesome forests!

I'm not sure what species this first one is, looks like an elm maybe?



I love how straight this juniper forest is.

Without the wide angle lens

okay I think this one is a clump, but it's styled like a forest

The bark here is nuts

my uploads are timing out, so I'm going to include the last few forests in another post

 

[pandacular]

here are the last few forests, as promised



and another one of these crazy rock planting forests


I think my next post will have my favorite trees, which they conveniently put right near each other. but for now, back to work

 

[pandacular]

and finally, before I forget about this thread, my favorite trees from the garden (plus the oldest one)

these three were all situated together on one side of the garden, and are my favorites of each of the "big three" in this garden.

this taxus was said to be the oldest in the garden at about 800 years old

 

[Topdec]

Hi all, I'm new here and come with an offering of many pictures from my visit to Daitoku-ji Temple's bonsai garden in Kyoto. Daitoku-ji is a large temple complex, even by Kyoto's standards, with many different gardens, but I only had time to spend time in this one. My visit was on March 30th, 2023.

I'm not a great photographer and the sun was high overhead, so lighting was not at its best, but I hope you enjoy them nonetheless.

Before even entering the proper garden, they had quite a few lovely trees. I especially like the rock planted forests. These were not included in the program, but had small tags that I believe indicated age and species.

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detail shot of the same tree
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my favorite of the trees on the walk into the garden
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that completes the trees outside of the garden. I'll add the main garden trees in a follow-up in this thread

Some amazing trees

 

[pandacular]

Thanks for resurfacing this thread. I'll post a few more pictures as a reward.

 

[pandacular]

oh and here's the little program they had