Hydrangea Forest

To create a beautiful experience for returning/ visiting posterity, it's believed that the ancient patriarch of a family owning a patch of land around Minamisawa Ajisai mountain in Japan planted Hydrangea flowers. 

The flowers bloom in rainy season to give a vast beautiful flowery forest which is a mixture of blue, violet, some pink hydrangeas around the patriarch's old
grave.

Hydrangea flowers grow wildly in Japan and were first discovered there. It is found also in large quantities in shrines, parks, temples...

There's a saying in Japan - "don't stop raining until the hydrangeas become fully bloomed." It sheds light to it's historical part on Japanese culture. The hydrangeas change colour with the environment as they blossom fully in rainy season, and so they symbolise inconsistency, hopeless love etc. But for a forest of hydrangeas, it represents family ties, lasting love, eternal friendship.

Ajisai is hydrangea in Japanese. Hydrangea festival among other festivals is held in the country. 

What makes the hydrangea forest stand out is the intent of it's domestication - continued visit. So many people apart from the patriarch's generation visit the forest.

It's better to wear flats into the hydrangea forest because the wooden steps in it's paths can become slippery in rainy season.

The forest is very close to Tokyo, about ¥250 is the admittance fee💃.