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Wakayama Farm Bamboo Grove

bamboo groveUtsunomiyaWakayama Farmfilm locationillumination

Tochigi · Utsunomiya

36.6199°N, 139.8477°E

Everybody photographs the bamboo at Arashiyama in Kyoto, shoulder to shoulder on a path a few metres wide. The largest bamboo grove in Japan is on a working farm outside Utsunomiya, and you can walk it more or less alone.

Wakayama Farm has been cultivating bamboo and chestnuts here for around a century on a natural-cycle system, and the moso bamboo stands are big enough that film and commercial crews use them — the grove has appeared in productions including Kill Bill. Because it is a farm rather than a temple approach, the paths run through the stands rather than beside them, and the sense of scale is completely different: you are inside a plantation, not on a corridor. There is a tea house on site for matcha, and on summer evenings the grove is lit and stays open into the night.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

Weekdays 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Weekends and holidays 9:00 AM – 8:00 PM (to 9:00 PM June–August)

Closed: Closed over the New Year period

Entrance Fee

Daytime: ¥900 adults, ¥600 elementary and junior high school students, ¥300 preschoolers | Evening illumination charged separately: ¥600, ¥400, ¥200

Best Season

April for the bamboo shoot harvest | June–August for the evening illumination | Year-round

Visit Duration

60–90 minutes

Getting There

Access Information

2018 Takagimoto-machi, Utsunomiya. Car recommended, around 25 minutes from central Utsunomiya. Open 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM on weekdays and 9:00 AM – 8:00 PM at weekends and on holidays, extended to 9:00 PM from June to August. Closed over the New Year period. Daytime admission ¥900 adults, ¥600 elementary and junior high school students, ¥300 preschoolers; the evening bamboo illumination is charged separately at ¥600, ¥400 and ¥200.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Weekend evenings are a different place.** The grove closes at 5:00 PM on weekdays but stays open to 8:00 PM at weekends and holidays, and to 9:00 PM in high summer, with the stands lit. The illumination is a separate ticket from daytime entry — check which you are buying. **Go deep rather than round.** The paths run through the plantation rather than along an edge. The photographs people want are from well inside, where the stems close overhead; the section nearest the entrance is the least interesting part. **Book the matcha.** The tea service on site is the natural pause halfway round and needs arranging on arrival rather than turning up at the tea house. **Spring adds the bamboo shoots.** This is a working farm and the moso shoot harvest is in April. Seeing a bamboo grove being farmed rather than curated is a large part of what makes this different from a temple grove. **Pair it with Oya.** The Oya stone quarries and Oya-ji are about twenty minutes away, and the two together — an underground quarry and the country's largest bamboo stand — make an unusually strong day out of a city most people only pass through for gyoza.

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