Saturday, June 22 | 10am to 2pm
In anticipation of warm weather on Saturday, we will have cooling fans in addition to water and ice cream available for purchase. Guests are encouraged to bring their own water and seek shade under one of our Arboretum tents or many shaded tree areas. As we get closer to the event, any updates will be shared on our website, dawesarb.org, as well as The Dawes Arboretum's Instagram and Facebook accounts.
Celebrate one of The Dawes Arboretum’s most beloved gardens during the Japanese Garden Festival! Food trucks will consist of Ono Turo Turo & Poppy's Roadside Diner, Velvet Ice Cream Cart and Woodland Pub.
There will be activities for all ages including Dragon Ikka Calligraphy, Ryukyukoku Matsuri Daiko Drumming, Granville Yoga's Qigong, origami and more!
Additionally, guests will have the opportunity to participate in a Formal Tea Ceremony with Tea Master Yumiko Passalacqua during the Festival for a fee. Registration is required and space is limited. All tea ceremonies are now SOLD OUT.
With everything in full bloom and full of possibility, there is no better time than summer to learn the joys of writing haiku. The beauty of this ancient Japanese art form lies in capturing a moment, idea, or feeling – often inspired by the seasons of Nature – in the most vivid language possible. Haiku are small but mighty.
Join us for a workshop at 12:45pm with award-winning poet Jennifer Hambrick, where you will learn the anatomy of haiku by exploring excellent examples of published haiku in English. Then, try your hand at writing your own haiku to share with the group, as comfortable.
Jennifer Hambrick, of Columbus (jenniferhambrick.com), is the author of four books of poetry, including most recently the highly acclaimed collection of haiku and short prose poems a silence or two (Red Moon Press, 2024). Hambrick has won many national and international awards for her free verse poetry and poems in Japanese short-form genres, including haiku.
For this event, please check in at the Welcome Tent.
For more information on the history of our Japanese Garden, check out this Beyond Your Backyard blog post.