Kyoto Botanical Gardens

This guide to Kyoto Botanical Gardens traces how, in 1946, American occupation officers eyed the Imperial Palace grounds for military housing before officials redirected them here instead, to a public garden barely twenty years old. It follows what happened to the young collection the Mitsui family had endowed in 1924 once army families moved in, and the decade-plus wait before the land was returned in 1957. Walk the camphor avenue near the entrance while you listen.