Grassy Korakuen garden

One fifth of the garden is covered with grass at present. But three quarters of it was rice and vegetable field when it was built in 1700. The lord loved to see the farmers work. And he wrote, "I almost forgot to go back to the castle when I was looking at their daily work." The garden went through transformation due to the interest and preference of successive Ikeda lords. The founder's son built a small hill in the middle of the garden. At the same time, a watercourse, which linked the two existing ponds and was made into additional pond later, was naturally formed since the soil was dug up to make the hill. Another lord made most of the field into grass due to financial reasons. He laid off the farmers for streamlining. Some interesting shift can be observed but basically the garden retains the style as the strolling type garden of the feudal lords in the Edo period. The Ikeda clan was dispatched to Okayama as the governor of The domain by the then central government Tokugawa Shogunate and they were here for most of the Edo period. Glass spreading over the garden and meandering streams which show sensitive dynamism by flowing rapidly or slowly have to be the visible characters of this garden.