Saga-giku Chrysanthemum Exhibition at Daikakuji Temple

Daikakuji began as a detached palace of Emperor Saga and is still known as the former Saga Imperial Villa. The Saga-giku cultivated here is a classical variety ranked with the Higo and Edo chrysanthemums as one of Japan's three most celebrated. Its petals grow thread-thin and long; tradition holds that Emperor Saga himself refined wild chrysanthemums found on Kikugashima island in Osawa Pond into a form worthy of display. Cultivation follows its own rules: three stems to a pot, trained to a uniform height of about two metres. That height was fixed so the flowers would sit correctly in the eye of someone seated inside the shinden-style halls, and walking the corridors today you see them exactly as intended. The exhibition runs the full month of November, overlapping the autumn foliage around Osawa Pond and the Shingyo Hoto pagoda.