Cherry blossoms in bloom at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, USA

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Cherry blossoms in bloom

Welcome to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco - the oldest of 120 Japanese gardens in the USA. Originally designed as a temporary exhibit in the 1894 World’s Fair, the gardens became a permanent fixture in this Californian park, overseen by landscape designer Makoto Hagiwara.

Hagiwara poured his money, passion and talents into giving visitors an authentic taste of Japanese horticulture. They can cross bridges over koi ponds and wander through pagodas and gardens full of native Japanese plants and trees. Hagiwara died in 1925, but his family remained in the house he built on the property until they were sent to an internment camp during World War II and the gardens were renamed ‘Oriental Garden’. Once the war was over, the original name returned, but the family did not. Hagiwara’s vision lives on in the gardens, as one example of the millions of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans who helped build and beautify the USA.