The garden has a nicely built promenade.

Located in the hilly area of Motobu Town, Hydrangea Garden Yohena attracts attention every year during Okinawa’s rainy season. About 300,000 hydrangea flowers blooming on over 10,000 bushes fill a hillside of about 107,000 square feet. The overwhelming beauty of the garden, completely covered by blue hydrangeas in full bloom, gives people a sense of happiness. The hydrangea garden started when the late Uto Yohena planted a few hydrangeas as a hobby over 50 years ago. Her hobby eventually replaced her tangerine orchard, and she continued to look over her beloved hydrangeas until she passed at 100 years old a few years ago. Her children and grandchildren now maintain the garden.

Most of the hydrangeas at Hydrangea Garden Yohena are blue due to the acidic soil, but the soil in some parts of the garden has been made alkaline to produce pink hydrangeas. Grandma Uto wanted to please the people who visited every year, as her hospitality never ran out.

‘The hydrangea garden is what makes my life worth living’

For Uto Yohena, remaining physically active throughout life was a lifestyle consistent with all the factors for longevity. She told visitors that growing more hydrangeas and taking care of her garden was what made her life worth living. She never experienced any serious illness and was hardly ever hospitalized until she turned 100. She was blessed with nine children and headed a large family consisting of 102 members, including great-great-grandchildren.

Her husband, who was three years her senior, passed away at the age of 59, and left her raising their children on her own. However, when parenting became slightly less busy around the time she turned 60, she began planting hydrangeas in the spacious premises of her home, which used to be a tangerine orchard. Every year, she raised hydrangea cuttings in pots and transplanted them into the soil. Through such steady efforts, the hydrangea garden grew larger little by little.

Initially, the garden was open to the public free of charge, but through word of mouth, the garden became widely known, and the number of visitors increased more than expected. Around the time that her children reached the age of retirement, the whole family began managing and taking care of the garden, and the Hydrangea Garden Yohena in its current form opened for business in 2000. Now, nearly 20,000 visitors, both Japanese and foreign, come every year to see the beautiful flowers.

Upon becoming a centenarian in 2017, working in the field became difficult for her, but she kept directing her children, who managed the grounds, so that everything was in order and visitors could continue enjoying her garden. She often said that she still dreamed about working in the field every day.

Uto Yohena
Born in 1917, she passed on at the age of 100. With her outgoing personality, she was always able to become friends with anyone very quickly. She was a "super centenarian" in the true meaning of the word.

Yohena Hydrangea Garden Flower Festival

Date: May 11- end of June, 2025
Place: Yohena Hydrangea Garden, 1312 Izumi, Motobu Town