Ashikaga Flower Park

The park's centrepiece is a single Japanese wisteria over a hundred and fifty years old whose trained canopy covers roughly a thousand square metres on a frame, so that walking under it in late April is walking under a ceiling of hanging racemes. It was not grown here: in 1996 the whole plant was moved about ten kilometres from its previous site in an operation led by the tree surgeon Kazuko Tsukamoto, who cut and treated the roots over a period before lifting it - at the time the largest transplant of its kind attempted in Japan, and it survived. Around it are white and yellow wisteria, a long yellow laburnum tunnel, and a tunnel of white wisteria whose flowering runs a week or two later. Ticket prices move with the bloom, which is unusual and honest. In winter the park runs one of the largest illumination displays in the country.

What you actually see

• The great wisteria - a single vine over a thousand square metres of trained canopy.
• A moved tree - transplanted ten kilometres in 1996 and surviving it.
• Sequenced tunnels - purple, white and yellow flowering a week or two apart.
• Winter illumination - one of the largest light displays in Japan.

When to go

Late April for the great wisteria; early May for the white tunnel. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Peak wisteria brings severe crowds and timed entry. Ticket prices rise sharply in the best weeks. The bloom window is short and moves by year. Outside wisteria and illumination seasons the park is modest.

Nearby

Ashikaga town and Ashikaga Gakko are north-west.