Central Hokkaido · BieiNo.723★★★Open in map →

Shikisai-no-oka

— A banded flower garden on the Biei hills

natureThe classic — done right

A flower garden on the rolling farmland south of Biei, where each variety is planted in a long band that follows the slope. The hill reads as stripes of colour in summer and turns over to snow ground in winter, and it opens right through the year.

FromAsahikawa Station
~40 minJR Furano Line, then a walk
Get off atBimaushi Station (JR Furano Line)
From there
Shikisai-no-oka

Directions ↗

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

The banded flower slopeeach variety planted in a long strip that curves with the fall of the hill
The tractor busan open trailer that loops the grounds for anyone not walking the slope
The alpaca paddocka separate enclosure at one side of the garden, closing before the gate does
The Biei hills beyond the fenceworking fields in the same banded pattern, running out to the mountains

How to actually get there

Asahikawa Station → Biei Station (JR Furano Line, local, about 32 minutes), then one more stop to Bimaushi.
Bimaushi Station → Shikisai-no-oka (about a 25 minute walk on rolling farm roads, or hire a bicycle at the station).
Garden entrance → the banded flower slope, walking down the hill so the stripes stack in front of you.
Loop back past the alpaca paddock and return to Bimaushi Station the same way.

JR Furano Line to Bimaushi Station: Asahikawa Station →(JR Furano Line, local train, about 32 minutes)→ Biei Station; Bimaushi is the next stop south, so stay on for one more. Trains on this line are spaced out through the day, so look at the timetable before you set out rather than at the platform.
Back from Bimaushi Station: Walk back down to Bimaushi and take the Furano Line north to Biei and Asahikawa, or south towards Furano. The station is unstaffed, with no ticket window and no one to ask, so settle your return before you leave Asahikawa or Biei.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Shikisai-no-oka lies on the farmland south of Biei, in a district called Shinsei Daisan. The ground here does not sit flat: it rises and dips in long swells, and the garden works with that by planting each flower type in a band running across the slope. Seen from the low end, the bands stack up into stripes that bend with the ground rather than lying straight. Beyond the fence the same hills carry working fields of potato, wheat, soybean and sugar beet, and the crops are rotated year by year, which is what gives the district its patchwork look. The garden runs through the whole year and closes only for the New Year.

How to enjoy it

Opening hours move month by month here — earlier and longer through the summer, shorter at either end of the year — so check the day before rather than assuming. The flowering half of the year is the charged half; the winter half turns the slope into snow ground with rafting and snowmobile runs instead of beds. Walking up from the station adds most of an hour to the round trip, which is worth building into the day rather than discovering at the platform.

Background & history

The hills around Biei were shaped by eruptions of the Tokachi range and then cut by rivers into long swells. Settlers arrived at the end of the nineteenth century and cleared the ground on a grid, and the rotation of crops across those rectangles produced the patchwork the town is now known for. The landscape photographer Shinzo Maeda made these fields his subject, and his gallery, Takushinkan, stands on the same hills near the station. Flower gardens like this one came afterwards, borrowing the banded pattern of the fields and planting it in colour.

Before you go

Cash: Admission is charged during the flowering season and was 800 yen for high school age and above, 500 yen for primary and junior high, at the time of checking; younger children go free. The rides inside the grounds are paid for separately. Carry cash.
Good to know: The garden opens all year and shuts only on 31 December and 1 January, but the closing hour changes with the month. The alpaca paddock stops admitting visitors before the garden does. Flowers belong to the green season, roughly late spring to late autumn; outside it the slope is snow.
Another way: By car it is about twelve minutes from Biei Station, and the car park takes 300 cars and 30 coaches, charged once per visit through the summer months. A seasonal local bus also circles the Biei hills in summer, and bicycles can be hired near Bimaushi Station, which turns the climb into a shorter ride.
After you get off: Bimaushi is a small unstaffed station with a level crossing instead of a footbridge. From it the garden is about a 25 minute walk of roughly two kilometres, on farm roads that rise and fall the whole way — there is no flat approach, and no bus from the station to the gate.