Tachikawa Autumn Leaves Guide: Ginkgo, Zelkova and Where to Walk

When fallen leaves were treasure: autumn in the coppice and the shrine forests

After the zelkova, the autumn of the coppice woods and the shrine forests.

The person from Ichiban-cho who wrote in the war-experience collection also left this description of the woods of Sunagawa. To the south of Sunagawa, between it and Showa-cho, there was woodland, and there were coppice woods on the western boundary with Fussa and on the northern boundaries with Mizuho, Murayama, Yamato and Kodaira. Those woods gave villagers firewood for fuel, and the fallen leaves were used as fertiliser. As a child, they went with the grown-ups to rake leaves, taking rice cakes for lunch, and grilled millet cakes and the like over dead branches to eat. Sunagawa had few rice paddies; the only rice was dry-field rice, so rice cakes were precious, and they were pounded with foxtail millet or proso millet mixed in.

Fallen leaves were a treasure to be gathered. Take a packed lunch, go out to the woods as a family, rake the leaves and turn them into fertiliser. From that one passage rises even the smell of millet cakes toasting over a bonfire.

And now? The city’s Green Master Plan repeatedly mentions complaints from neighbours about fallen leaves as a problem in protecting street trees, heritage trees and protected woodland. One of the reasons heritage trees lose their designation or are pruned so heavily they lose their shape, it says, is the burden of looking after them, and fallen leaves. The plan also sets out efforts to lighten the load on tree owners, through things like cooperative leaf-sweeping.

Back then, fallen leaves were something you went to rake with rice cakes for lunch. Now, fallen leaves become a complaint over the phone. In little more than half a century, the same leaves have gone from treasure to nuisance. This is not a matter of who is right. But when I walk under the zelkovas, I want to remember that the leaves at my feet once enriched the soil of the fields.

The same contribution contains another story that sums up Tachikawa’s history in a line. The Fifth Air Regiment of the Imperial Japanese Army, which moved to Tachikawa in 1922, and its airfield, it says, were made by clearing coppice woods. The title of the contribution is “The war turned our woods (the coppice) into an airfield.” Part of the woods where people once went to rake leaves became flat land for aeroplanes.

The site of that airfield is today’s Showa Kinen Park. (After the war it became a US Air Force base, Tachikawa Air Base, and the land was returned to Japan in the 1970s.) In the north of the park there is a small hill called Komorebi Hill. The park explains that on land that was originally flat, it built up a core of rubble from demolishing the US base and surplus soil from the construction of Tama New Town, covered it with Kanto loam and the topsoil that had been stripped off and set aside at the start, and moved trees there to make a coppice wood. The main trees are deciduous broadleaves, which turn red and yellow in autumn; their fallen leaves become leaf mould that nourishes the wood further. Park volunteers cut the undergrowth, trim the bamboo grass and rake the leaves every week, and about 180 kinds of wild plant flower on the woodland floor through the seasons, the park says.

Coppice became an airfield, and the airfield’s rubble became coppice. And there, people are still raking leaves. They may not bring rice cakes for lunch, but the same work the children of Sunagawa did in the Showa era is being carried on by people of today, on a hill made of rubble from the base. If I had to name the one fact about autumn in Tachikawa that stayed with me most, I would name this.

The shrine forests keep the look of that age of fallen leaves best. Number seven of the Twelve Green Views is “around Suwa Shrine.” The shrine is surrounded by the green of great trees and is loved as a chinju no mori, the sacred forest that guards a shrine, the city says. Suwa no Mori Park, just across a road to the north, was once part of the forest that surrounded the shrine, and became a public park after the war. The shrine, with about 1,200 years of history, was once so thick with trees that it was dark even in daytime, it is said. “Dark even in daytime” — the phrase turns up here too. In Showa-era Tachikawa, there were places all over that were dark even at midday.

Number eight is Azusami Tenjin-sha Shrine in Sunagawa, whose highlights are its traditional shrine forest and its wooden shrine buildings with a feeling of history. Its worship hall, completed in 1862, is built entirely of zelkova and is a magnificent building rarely seen even in Tokyo, the city says. When the zelkovas of the forest turn colour, the worship hall too is made of zelkova. A wooden building stands among the trees it is made of.

Number six is the area around Ryusen-ji Temple, also in Sunagawa. The city says you feel the weight of history in its great trees, with the Sunagawa irrigation channel, household woods and zelkova rows all around. Ryusen-ji was founded in 1650 as the family temple of groups one to ten of Sunagawa Village. In the Meiji era a school was set up in its grounds, and for about 30 years it was the centre of education, it is said. The temple’s great trees must have watched dozens of autumns pass over the heads of the village children.

There is autumn on the southern escarpment, too. Number three of the Twelve Green Views is the Tachikawa escarpment around the Tokyo Metropolitan Agriculture and Forestry Research Center, where the highlight is the Musashino coppice that survives on the slope. The woods of Yagawa Ryokuchi in Hagoromo-cho are made up of white oak, zelkova, konara oak and others. In the north, the green path of the Tamagawa Aqueduct, chosen as number one of the twelve views, is also a path through Musashino coppice. Evergreen white oak mixed with zelkova and konara oak turning colour. Autumn in the coppice is not a single colour.

We have seen the coppice and the shrine forests. Last come the zelkovas in the middle of town, and the ginkgo in the park.

Zelkova avenues in town: from the North Exit to City Hall and Matsunaka Danchi

Number ten of the Twelve Green Views is “around the Faret entrance.” The city says the highlights are the precious greenery at the old entrance to Tachikawa Air Base and the zelkova avenue of Tachikawa Kitaguchi Odori (“North Exit Avenue”). (Faret Tachikawa is the office and hotel district built on part of the former base, known for its public artworks.) The greenery at what used to be the entrance to the base is now an avenue of trees by the station.

Zelkovas also line Sun Sun Road, which runs north from the station’s North Exit beneath the monorail. A guide to the winter illuminations counts 48 zelkovas as the trees that define this street. Sun Sun Road has an article of its own, so here I will only note that its zelkovas turn colour in autumn.

Further north, around City Hall, there is another zelkova avenue. The city’s green plan says the zelkova avenue around Tachikawa City Hall is beautiful not only for the size of its trees but also for their shape, and lends the city dignity. It is rare for a city office to praise the trees around its own building so candidly in a planning document. But the same plan is honest, too, about how hard street trees on narrow roads are to keep: roots lifting the pavement, the width of the footpath, complaints about fallen leaves, trees losing their shape after heavy pruning. An avenue of trees becomes dignity only on a wide road.

Number eleven of the Twelve Green Views is the area around the Chuo Nanboku-sen road in Midori-cho. Its wide footpaths are full of greenery and perfect for a walk, and Showa Kinen Park is close by, the city says. Number twelve is “the zelkova avenue,” at Matsunaka Danchi, a housing estate. Its highlights are “the tunnel of zelkova, the city tree” and being soothed by rich greenery through all four seasons. The council closed the last of its twelve views with an avenue of the city tree.

As future work, the city’s plan lists a survey of zelkova and cherry street trees, and a study of the actual state of the zelkova rows on the Itsukaichi Kaido and how to preserve them. The same plan says Tachikawa is known nationwide for growing nursery trees. A city that raises and sells trees is worrying over how to care for its own. I seem to have heard somewhere that the garden of a nurseryman’s house is the least well kept of all.

Where to see ginkgo and maple colours in Showa Kinen Park

And the most glamorous stage of autumn in Tachikawa is Showa Kinen Park. I walked through the park’s history and its four seasons in detail in another article, so here I will just briefly describe where to see the autumn colours.

The ginkgo avenue along the Canal, just inside the Tachikawa Gate, lines both sides of a 200 m water channel. The tops of the trees are clipped square because their height is kept down for the flight restrictions of the Self-Defense Forces runway next door. The “Katarai Ginkgo Avenue,” about seven minutes’ walk from the Nishi-Tachikawa Gate, is about 300 m long; here the ginkgos grow in their natural shape, and at the November peak they become a tunnel of gold. Both avenues are made of trees moved or kept from the days of the US base.

The Canal avenue has two rows on each side, symmetrical, 106 trees in all. On the Katarai avenue, the yellow leaves have been lit up at night since 2019.

For red maples, the Japanese Garden is the place. Created in April 1997, it is a stroll garden of about 6 ha around a pond, said to be the largest built in the Tokyo region since the war. Deciduous broadleaf trees such as maples and konara oak were planted to make up 60 per cent of the whole, and the park says the Japanese Garden made it possible to enjoy red autumn leaves that could not previously be seen in the park. Maples also turn in the Flowering Tree Garden and on Komorebi Hill.

There are a few things about the ginkgo worth knowing. Ginkgo trees are male or female, and only female trees bear ginnan, the ginkgo nuts. The soft outer layer of the seed gives off a strong smell when ripe, and touching it with bare hands can easily cause a rash. If, under an avenue of yellow ginkgo, you suddenly want to hold your nose, there is a female tree nearby.

An encyclopedia also explains why ginkgos are so common as street trees. Their bark is thick and they were thought to be fire-resistant, so in the Edo period they were planted widely on firebreak land. Because there were cases in which they stopped fire spreading during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, ginkgos came to be planted widely as street trees with disaster prevention in mind. When Tokyo chose the ginkgo as its tree, its explanation, too, had a line saying it resists pollution and fire. Tokyo’s ginkgos do not line the streets because they are beautiful; they are there first because they do not burn easily. The gold is a bonus.

Meanwhile, the park in Tachikawa, the city of the zelkova, naturally has zelkovas too. The big zelkova standing in the middle of the Minna no Harappa (“Everyone’s Meadow”) was there before the park was built, and the meadow was designed around this one tree. On your way back from the yellow ginkgo avenues, look up at the subdued colours of the big zelkova on the meadow, and you can compare the autumns of Tokyo’s tree and Tachikawa’s tree in a single day.

What colour is autumn in Tachikawa?

Let me go back to the first question. Why did Tachikawa make the zelkova, the tree Tokyo did not choose, its city tree?

The city’s answer is clear. The zelkova is native to Musashino and has long coexisted with residents’ lives as a windbreak. It protected the houses along the Itsukaichi Kaido from the winter north wind that whips up the red earth. In Sunagawa around 1935, hedges of zelkova and oak grew so thick that they made the road dark even at midday, and cast a cool shade in summer. If what Tokyo’s voters chose was a city tree that lines the streets, what Tachikawa chose was a village tree that had protected fields and homes.

What colour is autumn in Tachikawa? The gold of the ginkgo in Showa Kinen Park and the red of the maples in the Japanese Garden are both Tachikawa’s autumn. But the ground colour of autumn in this city is probably the yellowish brown and reddish brown of the zelkova. It is not showy. It does not photograph well. But it is the colour of a tree that, for generation after generation, has kept off the wind, given shade, and enriched the fields with its fallen leaves.

Back then, people went to rake leaves with rice cakes for lunch. Now we go to see the ginkgo with cameras. The reason for going to see the trees has changed, but one thing has not: when autumn comes, the people of Tachikawa go out under the trees.

The farewell in Bokusui’s poem was in the shade of a cherry’s autumn leaves. A hundred and twenty years later, in front of the station, under the leaves of the zelkova, someone is seeing someone off today as well.

Quiz answer

The answer is (C), maple. The candidates in the 1966 public vote were the zelkova, the ginkgo and the Somei-Yoshino, and the ginkgo was chosen. The Somei-Yoshino later became Tokyo’s flower, and the zelkova became Tachikawa’s city tree in 1974.

Before you go

• When to go: Showa Kinen Park gives the best time for its ginkgo as late October to late November, and for its maples as late October to early December. Timing shifts from year to year, so check that year’s flower news (Japanese): https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/flower-information/
• Showa Kinen Park: the Canal ginkgo avenue is just inside the Tachikawa Gate. The Tachikawa Gate is about 18 minutes from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, and the Akebono Gate about 10 minutes. The Katarai Ginkgo Avenue is about 7 minutes’ walk from the Nishi-Tachikawa Gate, which is about 2 minutes from Nishi-Tachikawa Station on the JR Ome Line (according to the park). Check admission, opening hours, closing days and whether there are evening events on the official site: https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/
• Great Zelkova of Hachiman Shrine: in front of 1-7-8 Shibasaki-cho. About 200 m west of the south torii of Suwa Shrine (1-5-15 Shibasaki-cho, 10 minutes’ walk from JR Tachikawa Station). Suwa Shrine’s chrysanthemum exhibition runs for about two weeks every November (according to the shrine). City information (Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004847/1019994/1004862.html
• Twelve Green Views of Tachikawa: the list, including the big zelkova of Wakaba-cho, Azusami Tenjin-sha Shrine, Ryusen-ji Temple, Suwa Shrine, the Faret entrance, the Chuo Nanboku-sen road and the Matsunaka Danchi zelkova avenue (Japanese): https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/sports/1002924/1002994/index.html
• Bokusui’s poem stone: in the middle of the bus rotary at the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station.
• A half-day route: north — from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, see Bokusui’s poem stone, walk under the zelkovas of Sun Sun Road and on to the Akebono Gate of Showa Kinen Park (about 10 minutes). South — from the South Exit, go to Suwa Shrine (10 minutes’ walk) and the Great Zelkova of Hachiman Shrine (about 200 m west of the south torii), then follow the city’s “Walking the Old Village” route to Fusai-ji Temple. In the north of the city, you can also follow the Tamagawa Aqueduct green path to Azusami Tenjin-sha Shrine and Ryusen-ji Temple.
• Getting to Tachikawa: from Shinjuku, take the JR Chuo Line; Tachikawa is on the line, with no change needed. Check the current timetable before you set off, and carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO.
• Etiquette: many of the household woods and heritage trees belong to private homes. Enjoy them from the street. Shrines are places of worship; walk quietly and follow any notices. And if you meet fallen ginkgo nuts, do not pick them up with bare hands.

After your walk, the North Exit

Walk through Tachikawa in autumn and the evenings come early. While you are lost in the yellow of the ginkgo avenue, the wind turns cold. Feet that have been walking on fallen leaves are colder than you think.

One minute’s walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a hot yoga studio heated by lava-stone plates. Besides lava-stone hot yoga, it offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lesson.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30. Even after the park has closed for the day, there is still time to drop in.

A trial yoga lesson costs ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a yoga mat included in the rental. Camera, leaf-covered shoes and all, you can come just as you are.

Pregnant guests cannot take part in lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information: https://ontheshore.jp/ — trial lesson booking: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

Pass under the zelkovas by the station and climb to the third floor of a building. Outside the window, the city tree is turning this year’s colour.

Cover photo: A ginkgo avenue in autumn yellow at Showa Kinen Park, blue sky above and fallen leaves gilding the ground. (Photo: coniferconifer / CC BY 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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