Kenroku-en

The name comes from a Chinese treatise: a perfect garden should hold spaciousness and seclusion, artifice and antiquity, flowing water and broad views, six virtues held to be mutually exclusive in pairs. The Maeda enlarged it in stages from 1676 to 1874 around a water system that still feeds Japan’s oldest fountain by pressure alone. In winter the pines are rigged with conical rope frames, the yukitsuri, so heavy snow does not break the branches. Eleven hectares, open every day of the year.