May 19, 2026.
Nagai Botanical Garden Rose Garden and Nakanoshima Rose Garden.
Video length: 24 minutes and 21 seconds.
I entered Nagai Botanical Garden a little after 4 p.m.
On the way back, I also stopped by Nakanoshima Rose Garden.
Until today, the finest possible clear weather had continued, as if for the sake of all the good men and women, young and old, who wished to enjoy the roses in full bloom.
From tomorrow, the weather is expected to break and turn rainy.
It was as though the sky had kept its clarity until today so that the spring roses could show their final radiance.
The rose garden at Nagai Botanical Garden was still more than fully in bloom.
However, as a photographic subject, I think today was the limit.
For that very reason, the photographs I took today at the Nagai Botanical Garden Rose Garden are, even to my own eyes, truly good.
I believe they became splendid photographs.
The light after 4 p.m. is different from morning light.
It is not too strong, and yet it is not weak.
It deepens the colors of the roses, brings out the shadows of the petals, and quietly illuminates the final beauty held by the roses of spring.
The roses in the evening light had a beauty different from that of roses in the morning.
Roses just before passing beyond their full bloom.
And yet, they had not lost their dignity.
Rather, each flower seemed to gain an even stronger presence.
That beauty was there today in the Nagai Botanical Garden Rose Garden.
Nakanoshima Rose Garden, where I stopped on the way home, was also splendid, as a rose garden blooming in the heart of the city.
Osaka has two rose gardens of which it can be proud: Nagai Botanical Garden and Nakanoshima Rose Garden.
Today, I photographed those two rose gardens in the light at the end of the day.
In addition, to match the length of the music, I added photographs of Nakanoshima Rose Garden taken at 5:30 a.m. on May 16, 2026, as part of the same record of spring roses.
Nakanoshima on May 16 was in the light just after dawn.
Nagai on May 19 was in the evening light.
Morning light.
Evening light.
Nakanoshima Rose Garden.
Nagai Botanical Garden Rose Garden.
These two times, and these two rose gardens, became one record of spring within Himari’s performance of Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3.
Roses in full bloom.
A clear blue sky.
Evening light.
Nakanoshima at dawn.
And the final radiant appearance of spring roses before the rain begins tomorrow.
This photo collection is the record of that day, and also a record of the roses of Osaka in the spring of 2026.
For the music, I was fortunate to use a YouTube-available performance by Himari of Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3.