Japanese Tea Garden
Zen Garden
I walked over to the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden looking for Spring blossoms. It’s late January on the West Coast but the unseasonal warm weather has trees showing color early. When I got there, the Tea Garden itself didn’t have much to offer in the way of colorful blooms and I was disappointed. I walked towards the back of the garden and the sun was peeking through the trees. It added another texture to the Zen Garden.
Japanese Tea Garden
After the conclusion of the 1894 World’s Fair, Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant and gardener, approached John McLaren with the idea to convert the temporary exhibit into a permanent park. Hagiwara personally oversaw the building of the Japanese Tea Garden and was official caretaker of the garden from 1895 to 1925. He specifically requested that one thousand flowering cherry trees be imported from Japan, as well as other native plants, birds, and the now famous goldfish. After San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition closed, he obtained the two large ornamental wooden gates, and probably also the Tea Garden’s prominent five-tiered pagoda, from that fair’s Japanese enclave.
Snapshots by Kats 