Aizu Matsudaira's Royal Garden (御薬園?) is a medicinal herb garden in the city of Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The garden was first established in the 1380s. In the 1430s Ashina Morihisa, the 10th feudal lord of the Ashina clan, believing it to be a sacred place, kept the garden as a villa. In 1670, Matsudaira Masatsune, the second feudal lord of the Aizu fief, cultivated various herbs in the garden. Private citizens were encouraged to grow herbs as well, so the garden became known as Oyakuen, or "medicinal herb garden". Today there are about 400 kinds of medicinal herbs and trees cultivated in and around the garden. Meguro Jotei, a landscape gardener during the Edo period, designed the current layout of the garden to show nature in miniature, which is typical of a Japanese garden. The garden pond is named Shinji no Ike and is shaped like the kanji character for "heart" (心). The rectangular garden has a perimeter of about 540 m and an area of about 1.7 ha.
Read more about Aizu Matsudaira's Royal Garden: The Chōyōkaku (重陽閣), The Ochayagoten (御茶屋御殿), Rakujutei (楽寿亭)
Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or garden:
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We are frequently told that talents and genius are natural gifts; and so indeed they are, to the same extent that the productions of the garden and the field are natural gifts.”
—U. R., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 317-19 (June, 1829)