Shanghaied Bob: Shanghai Botanical Gardens

In mid April I went to the Shanghai Botanical Garden, ME was away for the weekend and I was so pleasantly surprised by the Shanghai Flower Port I decided to check out this garden. The garden is in the Southwest suburb of Shanghai. It original started as a nursery in 1954 and in 1974 turned into the Shanghai Botanical Garden. It covers 202 acres and after many years of improvements it has become a comprehensive base for plant research, production, tourism, and natural science education and it has won many prizes in international flower show competitions.

The garden has many features including the renowned penjing garden. Penjing means potted scenery. It is an ancient Chinese art of depicting artistically formed trees, plants, and landscapes in miniature form. In this case it is tree penjing that focuses on planting one or more trees in a container and then shaping the tree through trimming, pruning and wiring to creating a pleasant composition. It is different from the bonsai, it allows for a wider range of tree shapes that are more "wild-looking" and by planting them in creatively shaped pots. The penjing Garden cover 9.9 acres including a museum and over 2000 containers. The reason I my telling you all of this, is because the penjing garden was quite fascinating and I took many pictures in this area.

The Shanghai Botanical Garden also features cherry, peach, plum, and maple tree orchards, a rose garden, and a peony garden, which is the national flower of China. There is a 5000-plant azalea garden, and a magnolia garden. There is a 50,000-plant bamboo garden, the garden does studies on bamboo because it is a great resource that grows in most places in China. There is a 5000 square meter conservatory which has 3500 species of tropical and subtropical plants. Then there are the exhibits and the boat rides etc. and the list goes on.

I visited the garden on a nice Saturday afternoon which is also a popular time for families to spend time together outdoors. For me it is a wonderful way to observe what the Chinese do as families. In many ways it is very similar to what we do when we go for a walk in the park , but there are some subtle differences. We of course like to walk for many hours around the park looking at all the different gardens and so do the Chinese. We would bring a blanket to lay out in the sun, have a picnic etc. The Chinese like to pitch a tent where, they can get out of the sun, take a nap, have a picnic etc. What I found many times when visiting the larger parks around Shanghai, families set up tents. I recently visited a sporting goods store that sells camping gear and I asked the sales person about camping in China. I was told that camping grounds do not exist in China, the Chinese do not go camping the way the westerns do. These tents and other supplies are sold to be enjoyed for several hours at a time set up in the public parks and gardens.

The other big activity is taking pictures. It seems like they take pictures of everything, especially themselves. The funny thing is that there are so many pictures being taken that in some areas of the garden the tulips are stomped on or the grass is worn away with folks trying to get that perfect picture.

Badminton is also very popular and looking around an open field there will be family after family playing, very much like us playing frisbee. Flying a kite is very big here and taken very seriously. And almost anywhere you find a lake or a stream you will find men fishing. Below are some photos of the different gardens in the park and some of the typical activities enjoyed by the Chinese.