Nerima Gardens – Image courtesy of Picture Ipswich
The Japanese city of Nerima became the sister city of Ipswich on 15 October 1994. The sister city relationship aims to forge goodwill between cities of different countries, cultures and experiences.
In 2001 the first stage of the Nerima Gardens, in Queen’s Park, was opened by Ipswich Mayor John Nugent and Mayor Saburo Iwanami of Nerima City. A black pine was planted by Mayors John Nugent and Saburo Iwanami as a friendship tree to symbolise the bond of friendship between Nerima and Ipswich. The second stage of the garden was opened on October 21, 2004 by Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale and Nerima Mayor Toshiro Shimura. The Nerima Gardens were designed in close consultation with Nerima landscape architects and fuse our two cultures together by combining plants native to our region with an exotic Japanese design.
The philosophy of the garden is to create:
A place of peace and tranquility, a place to meet nature and calm the spirit.
The Gardens feature walled entry gates, a peace bridge, forest walk, life bridge, raked garden, fish-scaled beach, waterfalls, secret garden, linked pathways and a feature pavilion. A replica of Mt. Flinders has been incorporated into the design of the gardens which has been planted to represent the geography of the Ipswich region. Two beautiful stone lanterns were a gift from the City of Nerima and a third was given as a gift from Tokyo Nerima West Rotary Club.
Over the years the Ipswich people have been lucky enough to receive many beautiful gifts and books from the people of Nerima. A selection of these gifts are held in display cases on the top floor of the Ipswich Library. Next time you are in the library make your way up to the top floor and take a look at the beautiful craftmanship of these objects.