Mukojima Hyakkaen Garden

Mukojima Hyakkaen is an 1804 commoner's flower garden in Sumida, a rare surviving example of an early-Edo town garden created not by a daimyo but by an antiques dealer. Founder Sawara Kikuu designed it as a social venue for poets, painters, and scholars of the Bunka-Bunsei era - hence its unusual focus on plants celebrated in classical Chinese and Japanese verse rather than the usual stone arrangements. The signature feature is a long pergola tunnel of bush clover (hagi) that erupts in pink and purple in September; plums in February, irises in June, and poetry readings year-round. The name literally means Garden of a Hundred Flowers. Small, quiet, mostly visited by locals; a few minutes' walk from Higashi-Mukojima station.