Ticket needed. Paid entry to the garden, a small fee, open daily
The Ginkgo of Shukkeien
at least 81 years, in a garden laid out in 1620Ginkgopin approximate
Shukkeien was made in 1620, the year after Asano Nagaakira came to Hiroshima, as the lord's garden beside his castle. It is a shrunk-down landscape, which is what the name means, with a pond standing in for a famous Chinese lake and a bridge over it, and it was designed by a tea master rather than a gardener. On 6 August 1945 it was 1,370 metres from the hypocentre. The garden burned and its buildings went, and people who had run from the city centre came here and died in the grounds; the garden was closed for six years and reopened in 1951. Three of its trees are on the city's register and have never been moved: this ginkgo, a muku and a black pine, all under the code E13a25. They are the oldest things on this page in all likelihood, because they were mature garden trees in a garden already three centuries old, though nobody has published a number for any of them. The ginkgo goes yellow in the second half of November, at the same time as the maples the garden is visited for.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. About 10 minutes on foot from Hiroshima Station, or tram to Shukkeien-mae
The pin marks the right spot roughly, not the tree itself. It stands here, but we have not confirmed the precise position on the ground yet. Know exactly where it is?
- Species
- Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba)
- Age estimate
- at least 81 years, in a garden laid out in 1620
- Location
- Shukkeien Garden, Kaminobori-cho 2-11, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0014 (Kaminobori-cho)
- Access
- Paid entry to the garden, a small fee, open daily
- Getting there
- About 10 minutes on foot from Hiroshima Station, or tram to Shukkeien-mae
Trees nearby
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
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