Ōmiya Bonsai Village

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Ōmiya Bonsai Village (大宮盆栽村 Ōmiya Bonsai-mura?) is the nickname of the bonsai nursery precinct in Bonsai-chō (盆栽町 Bonsai-chō?), Kita-ku, Saitama City, Japan.

Bonsai Village is located near Ōmiya-kōen Station (大宮公園駅 Ōmiya Kōen Eki?)” on Tobu Noda Line (it takes about 2 minutes from the station on foot), which is connecting with JR East Ōmiya Station. It is closed on every Thursday (unless the Thursday falls on a national holiday).

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[edit] History

  • 1925: Settled by a group of professional bonsai gardeners who originally lived around Dangō-Zaka (Hongō) area in Tokyo and emigrated from there due to the crucial damages caused by the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, at Toro and Hongō settlements of Ōsato village[1].
  • 1940 Ōsato village merged with other villages to form Ōmiya city.
  • 1957 The official suburb name 盆栽町 (Bonsai-chō lit. Bonsai Town?) was given to the precinct.[2]
  • 2001 Ōmiya city merges with other cities to form Saitama City.
  • 2003, 1 April, on the day of the government designation of Saitama City Bonsai-chō was classified in Kita-ku.

[edit] Today

As of 2007 Bonsai Village nurses hundreds of thousands of bonsai trees (bonsai pots) in a site of about 330,000 square meters. It is known as a Mecca of bonsai at home and abroad, and a number of bonsai devotees visit there from all over the world. This area is also a very popular tourist spot among foreign people.

Bonsai Village consists of about ten privately owned bonsai gardens, and it is to note that the current residence indication itself is also “Bonsai”. The community members of Bonsai Village used to have some unique rules among them (especially the founding members), such as “Each member must bring up more than 10 pots of bonsai.”, ”Each member must open their gardens to the public.”, "Each member must build the fence of quickset hedge”, “Construction with a height of more than two story buildings is strictly regulated.” and so on (of course these rules had already become invalid, for this area is also located in the commuter belt to Tokyo today).

Annually Bonsai Village holds the “Great Bonsai Festival” from May third to fifth. During the festival the area is packed with many bonsai devotees from all over Japan.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Apricot/7111/sub2-2.htm from The Birth of Bonsai Town (盆栽町 Bonsai-chō no Tanjō?) by Shōzō Kusakabe, 1996.
  2. ^ ja:盆栽村 as of 2007-04-23T14:48:39.

[edit] External links

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