Kubota Gardens

Seattle is a city that owes much to its Asian settlers and immigrants—including a beautiful, 20 acre garden often overlooked in the South Seattle neighborhood of Rainier Valley. Kubota Gardens is the legacy of master landscaper Fujitaro Kubota, who moved to the Seattle area in the 1920s.

He owned a successful gardening and landscaping company, but Kubota’s masterwork was his private garden, which he cultivated in traditional Japanese style—using native Northwest plants. The garden had to be rebuilt after Kubota and his family was interned for 4 years during World War II, and he rebuilt on a grand scale, bringing in 400 tons of rock to create a mini-mountainside with waterfalls and reflecting pools. 

The gardens became a  public park in 1987, allowing visitors to stroll the bamboo lined paths,  gardens, nurseries and bridges all hand-formed by Kubota with the help of his children. As opposed to the stiff green formalism of the also-beautiful Japanese gardens at the University of Washington arboretum, Kubota Gardens is somehow also a wild place, replete with whimsy that invites play and climbing, along with quiet reflection. There are few services at the park, so bring snacks and water.

Children are welcome and a few of the paths have been modified and modernized to be ADA compliant, so feel free to bring the whole family.

- by Caren Gussoff Sumption, Seattle Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Caren Gussoff Sumption

Caren Gussoff Sumption is a freelance writer and editor from Seattle, WA. She's written for USA Today, the Seattle Times/NW Source, MSN and AOL, and her fiction has been published worldwide. She received her MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.