Yosuien Garden was built by the 10th local Kishu clan leader, or daimyo Tokugawa Harutomi, and it took about eight years to create it from 1818. It has ponds with an excursion of water. In spite of the garden to locate near seashore, it was created introducing scenes of Mt. Tenjin and Mt. Takozushi without ocean view as the garden for a daimyo, a feudal lord. There are no houses for Kishu Tokugawa family in the garden, and it has villas to visit people coming from Wakayama Castel and Nishihama mansion, and they talked about various kinds of issues outspokenly without constraining their class.
General Description
Yosuien is a daimyo garden that was built over about 8 years from 1818 (the first year of the Bunsei government) as a place for purification from the Nishihama Palace, where the 10th lord of the Kishu Tokugawa family, Tokugawa Harutomi, was a retreat, and a place to entertain foreigners, and has a site area of about 7,000 tsubo and a pond of 3,500 tsubo. When His Highness came to the Yosui Garden, he would enter the garden by boat and land in the garden. Guests come to the park from the main gate in a palanquin. In the park, there is a 190-year-old tea house “Yosui-tei” that doubles as a resting place for His Highness.
More about Yosuien Garden
The Yosuien Garden is a daimyo garden with a pond spring walking style, a boat excursion style, and a borrowed scenery, and although it is a daimyo garden, there are oyster butterflies, iris, hydrangeas, camellias, etc. for the purpose of enjoying tea, but there are not many like the current park, and the garden is mainly pine. There are about 1,100 pine trees, and it is a bold tailoring method with thick lines. Yosuien intentionally does not incorporate the view of the sea, but uses the scenery of the mountain range as a borrowed scenery, and is made with the contrast between the sea and the mountains in mind. In addition, taking advantage of the characteristics of the beach, the pond incorporates seawater. Since the pond is saltwater, there are many fish such as dogs, eels, gobies, and other creatures that live at the border between the sea and the river. Currently, there are only two daimyo gardens in Japan that incorporate such seawater. The scenery of the garden is roughly divided into two parts, and it is said that it was made in the Chinese way, which is said to imitate the West Lake, which has a straight seawall to the east, and it is said that it was made with the contrast between the straight line of the seawall and the curve of the mountain. To the west, closer to the building, is built in the Japan style with a curved seawall, and you can enjoy the change of scenery while walking around the garden.
