Chenshan's rose garden wins global award
The rose garden of Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden won the Award of Garden Excellence at the 19th World Federation of Rose Societies Convention held earlier this month in Adelaide, Australia. It's the fifth rose garden in China to be thus awarded after Shenzhen Renmin Park in Guangdong Province, Changzhou Zijing Park in Jiangsu Province, Beijing Botanical Garden, and Daxing Rose Garden in Beijing.
Chenshan's rose garden, covering an area of 36,000 square meters, opened in 2010. It's a rose showroom, scientific research center and educational base for flora lovers of all ages. It boasts 1,025 rose species of old roots, heritages, wild breeds and innovative varieties, becoming the rose garden with the biggest collection of rose resources in East China.
With the theme "love," the rose destination features six zones that go with the garden's natural terrain. Roses in the collection are laid out in winding beds, around pillars, on walls and along the archway, flanked by trees and shrubs to provide a symphony of color in a natural setting.
The Hanging Rosarium, situated around the exhibition greenhouse, features simple lines, neat European-style planting ponds and a colorful variety of display areas, offering a lively mood to the whole area, while the 1,500-meter-long Rose Wall at the foot of Chenshan Mountain, which is made up of blooming Chinese roses, is a popular photo spot.
Chinese rose, one of the garden's highlights, is regarded as the "Queen of Flowers" because of its graceful appearance, sweet fragrance, and rich color, as well as its long flowering period. Rose cultivation in the country dates back around 2,000 years.
"May is the best month to enjoy the flowers. Visitors keep flooding in," said Zhang Zhe, senior engineer of the botanic park. The park receives about 1.2 million visits every year and a quarter come for the rose garden.
