Japanese Friendship Garden — Attraction in Idaho Falls

In the middle of Idaho Falls, ID, we found a Friendship Garden tucked under a busy bridged intersection. A plaque indicates the Idaho Southeast District Garden Club has some responsibility for it; these are often “sister city” arrangements between cities or towns in Japan and the U.S., but we didn’t see any further info.

We recognized classic Japanese garden elements: bridges, stone lanterns and footpaths, streams with sounding stones and a Zen garden. I’d be grateful for comments from those who know more about these gardens; I’m a novice, but eager to learn.

This garden is part of a larger park along the Snake River, and the bigger falls (now tamed into a very attractive but very domesticated dam and spillway with a hydropower plant), nearby, drown out some of the gentler sounds of the garden’s water features. Across the river is the Idaho Falls LDS Temple; its classic, pure white form makes quite a contrast with this simple, rustic garden. Here are a couple of pictures.

Unforeseen delight - still, peaceful retreat...

It is a beautiful park the landscaping is great. I love the Japanese cultural influence it has. It has many wonderful water features, which are fun for children to explore and engage with. It is not very big, and you can see the whole thing in a few minutes. But if you get the children engaged you can spend a good bit of time here. It is right on the edge of the river, and there are spots that have cliff edges that drop right off into the river. So make sure to keep a close eye on any little ones. There are signs asking you to stay out of the landscaped garden beds and to not pick the flowers and such. There are beavers that come into the park (at night I presume) and chew up the trees and bushes, so you can often see signs of their work, which I think is really cool and could be a fun teaching opportunity. There are no playgrounds here. But it can be a fun place to explore and have a picnic. And if you want a longer walk you can continue on around...

This park is beautiful. We came here on a Thursday and it wasn’t too busy. There were kids playing in some of the water features (not the river!) and the water was quite chilly. The park has a few places with guard rails but once you get down on to the path it’s pretty open and can be dangerous if you fall in the water. If you have kids that like to run wild, you will most definitely want to monitor them here. There are lots of cliffs and different ways that you could easily fall in.

Overall, the park was very well maintained and very clean. It took me by surprise as to how pretty it is. There are benches throughout the different little walking paths to sit down on. A couple of different places you can stick you feet in the water, one of which is on the path itself, which you can moderately easily step over. It is fine for walking in flip flops as well. Very easy and very beautiful...