The Awe-Inspiring Wisteria of Japan & Los Angeles
Long associated with creativity, romance, and devotion, the ephemeral and ethereal wisteria vine has been grown in Korea, Japan, and China for more than 2,000 years.
While wisteria often look like trees, they’re actually flowering vines. More than 20 different species feature draping racemes, or downward-cascading clusters of petals, that bloom for just about a month each year in the spring (and sometimes into the early summer, depending on the geography).
The ancient vine is also symbolic of prosperity, resilience, and everlasting wisdom, with its twisting, climbing vines as symbolic of the constant search for knowledge.
Wisteria vines were brought to Europe in the 1800s and have continued to inspire legions of artists over decades, from the lyrics of Taylor Swift and the paintings of Claude Monet to the poetry of Marge Piercy and settings for TV dramas.
Nowhere on earth is wisteria more abundant and fantastical than in Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi, Japan. A rare double-petal vine known as the Great Wisteria provides a stunning display of thousands of pendulous flowers that bloom all at once, creating another kind of natural superbloom that inspires awe and reverence.
Just over an hour north of Tokyo, the serene park hosts more than 1.5 million visitors per year. In addition to its fairytale-like wisteria, the park is home to more than 1,000 types of azaleas, rhododendrons, roses, poppies, tulips, irises, and peonies.
More than 160 years old, the Great Wisteria is a centerpiece of Ashikaga. The park itself was established in 1968, when the venerable vine was designated a national monument by the Tochigi Prefecture, and to protect the entirety of the gardens that had grown there as part of Hayakawa farm.
Reaching a total size of more than 10,000 sq ft (from its original size of 775 sq ft at planting), the Great Wisteria is supported by wooden trellises and beams to hold the woody vines when under the weight of the racemes in full bloom. Vertical vines with clouds of lilac flowers hang down so low that they almost touch the ground, providing a surreal experience for those walking under its 80,000 awe-inspiring petals.
Surrounded by water, the already-unreal phenomenon is expanded even further by the reflections of its curved limbs and bright blooms. Visitors can experience the Great Wisteria in the dark as well, as the park illuminates it at night so that the giant canopy glows from within.
Ashikaga also features a number of additional wisteria forms, including tunnels of fragrant white and yellow wisteria that each run more than 250 feet long, arbors of pale red and purple blooms, a pale pink bridge, and a white wisteria waterfall. More than 350 other colorful wisteria trees also bloom throughout the 230-acre park, including dreamy curtains of flowers that appear each spring.
The park marks the blooming season of the Great Wisteria every spring with a festival in April & May. Thousands of visitors make the trek to the revered vine, which is in peak bloom for only about a month each year, and celebrate by purchasing their own wisteria saplings and tasting wisteria-flavored ice cream.
While the wisteria in Ashikaga is the oldest known, the largest wisteria vine in the world is actually in the sleepy town of Sierra Madre, California, just about 20 miles outside of Los Angeles. Planted in 1894 from a one-gallon container, it’s a wisteria chinesis variety that’s grown over the decades to be more than an acre. Listed as one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world, it was also named the world’s largest blossoming plant in 1990 by the Guinness Book of World Records.
Drawing crowds each springtime, the town puts on a festival in honor of what’s lovingly referred to as the “Lavender Lady'' and arranges tours and talks in celebration of this botanical wonder that’s had as many as 1.5 million purple petals and tendrils during its blooming season. While the plant itself is on private property, the homeowners open their yard each spring for just one weekend so that the public can view this fantastical plant that drapes around their 1962 home (as the original house on the property collapsed under the weight of the massive plant).
Regardless of the brevity of its public viewing period, the majestic vine is so intertwined with the identity of the town that the community holds an annual wisteria festival featuring arts, crafts, live music, and food from local establishments including the aptly named Wistaria, a nearby eatery established as an homage to the town’s local botanical celebrity.
“Shard by shard we are released
from the tyranny of so-called time.
A curtain of purple wisteria
partially conceals the entrance to a familiar garden...
In a wink, a lifetime, we pass through
the infinite movements of a silent overture.”
— Patti Smith
Surround yourself in blossoming wisteria patterns…
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