Great Greenhouse, Osaka Prefectural Flower Culture Garden (大阪府立花の文化園 大温室)

In 1990 Osaka hosted the International Garden and Greenery Exposition at Tsurumi Ryokuchi park. The prefecture wished to carry its spirit forward in a lasting facility, the Prefectural Flower Culture Garden (Hana no Bunka-en), which opened in September 1990 at Kawachinagano. According to the prefecture, its purpose was to give residents a place to learn about flowering plants and to relax among them. The site covers 98,468 m², three times the footprint of Kōshien stadium as the local tourist office likes to point out, and the great pyramidal greenhouse has become its emblem. The garden became known by the nickname Fururu Garden.

Run directly by the prefecture at first, the garden has been entrusted to a designated manager since fiscal 2006; a new contract that took effect on 1 April 2023 runs until fiscal 2032, and since that date the garden has carried the sponsored name Hana no Bunka-en with World Intec.

The prefecture ran market soundings on the garden's future in 2019 and again in 2021. The second was frank about the situation: ten years of falling visitor numbers and ageing main buildings that would need to be consolidated and renovated. For the first, the prefecture published plans of the garden's buildings, including the great greenhouse, which remain the best source on its design.

The great greenhouse is visible from afar thanks to its pyramid-shaped glass roof, which the Osaka tourist board describes as modelled on a flower bud. It stands at the centre of the garden, close to the rose garden.

The plan published by the prefecture in 2019 shows an almost square block of about 42.5 by 40 m, extended to 47.5 m overall by projecting entrance bays. Inside, it is divided into three houses with distinct climates: a cool house and an arid house share one side of the building, while the tropical house fills the centre and the other side, with a display area set aside for species orchids. Winding paths thread between beds with rounded outlines, and the plan places a rest room and toilets along one front.

The Japanese online encyclopedia also mentions an indoor fountain system, and the Kawachinagano tourist office notes a café on the first floor. The sources consulted name neither the architect nor the builder, and do not give the height of the pyramid.

The greenhouse shelters, on one side, tropical plants that cannot stand the cold, orchids first among them, and on the other plants of arid regions, cacti and other succulents.

The garden highlights its species orchids, wild species rather than horticultural hybrids, many of which it describes as valuable; the greenhouse plan gives them their own display area within the tropical house. The Osaka tourist board also mentions tropical flowering trees and shrubs and rare woody plants from around the world. The arid house brings together cacti and succulents, while the sources consulted do not detail what grows in the cool house. The garden presents the whole collection as worth seeing all year round, with no off season.

The greenhouse stands at the centre of the garden, near the rose garden, and fits into a half-day walk through grounds of almost 10 ha. Around it lie ornamental beds, the rose garden, peony, plum and hydrangea gardens, and a valley planted with maples.

In spring and autumn the garden runs guided tours of its collections; in winter, when the outdoor beds are resting, the greenhouse becomes the heart of the visit. The café on the greenhouse's upper floor offers a pause.