Manyo Botanical Gardens

This guide to the Manyo Botanical Gardens in Nara starts with wisteria trained to hang at eye level instead of overhead, a choice that came out of a long argument over what this three-hectare plot, set aside in 1889 for a palace that was never built, should become. It follows a 1927 newspaper campaign tied to the Tempyo era's twelve-hundredth anniversary that finally pushed officials to build a garden worthy of ancient poetry, and designer Oya Reijo's decision to borrow from later, better-documented gardens in Kyoto and Korea rather than guess at an unrecorded past. Stop by the pond at the center, where a small wooden stage still hosts court music twice a year.