Beijing Travel: Beijing Botanical Garden at the Foot of the Western Hills (Photo)
Nestled at the foot of the Western Hills, Beijing Botanical Garden, with its unique tourism resources, has for years drawn growing attention and affection from the capital’s residents. What's more, among the increasing annual visitor numbers, tourists from other parts of China and overseas have also begun to make up a significant proportion. I remember on April 21, 2005 — exactly 15 years ago today — the garden was hosting the 17th Beijing Peach Blossom Festival and World Famous Flower Exhibition when I visited. The brilliant spring scenery and vibrant colors of Beijing Botanical Garden left a deep impression on me.
Brilliant Spring at the Botanical Garden (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Arriving at the south gate, I saw vehicles clogging the entrance terribly. Visitors surged into the garden like a tide. Besides many independent travelers, there were also orderly lines of schoolchildren heading in. After entering with the crowd, a colorful garden world immediately unfolded before my eyes. Especially along the paths, the blooming tulips in every hue were dazzlingly bright.
South Gate of Beijing Botanical Garden (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Over a decade earlier I had been here, but the scene now was worlds apart from my memories. At that time, Zhao Shiwei, then deputy director of the garden, told me: "Beijing Botanical Garden was established in 1956 and has walked a journey of nearly 50 years, but the main development has actually occurred in the last dozen years or so. The garden now has a total planned area of 400 hectares, including 200 hectares of visitor areas and 200 hectares of natural protection test zones. It is a large comprehensive botanical garden focusing on collecting, exhibiting, and conserving plant resources from North, Northeast, and Northwest China, while also featuring tropical and subtropical plants. It mainly consists of the Plant Exhibition Area, the Scenic and Historic Sites Area, and the Cherry Valley Natural Protection Test Zone."
Zhao Shiwei also told me: "In recent years, the number of visitors coming to enjoy the flowers has grown steadily, reaching over 2.5 million last year. Spring and autumn are the busiest seasons. Especially during the warm spring blooming period, visitor numbers account for about 50% of the annual total."
Tulips I (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
"Meanwhile, autumn chrysanthemums and red leaves are another peak season for visitors. The Tropical Plant Exhibition Conservatory is warm like spring all year round and gathers plant species from around the world, some of them rare and unusual. Even during the Spring Festival golden week, it can spark a small tourism surge."
Tulips II (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
During my interview,I learned that the garden used to have a very small open area, but in recent years there has been a dramatic transformation. The open area alone now covers 3,000 mu. Sights like the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, Cherry Valley, Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall, and Liang Qichao's tomb have all been integrated into the garden's open area. At the same time, 11 specialty gardens have been built within the garden: peony garden, bonsai garden, crabapple garden, rose garden, flowering peach garden, lilac garden, magnolia garden, herbaceous peony garden, plum garden, bamboo garden, etc. Visitors can enjoy different flowers in every season.
Red Peach Blossoms (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
As I strolled around the garden, I saw in the crowded Flowering Peach Garden that over 10,000 peach trees of 60 varieties—red, pink, and white, with names like 'Cloud Dragon', 'Speckled Leaf', 'Chrysanthemum Peach', and mountain peach series—were blooming in a riot of colorful and diverse flower shapes. Since 1989, the Beijing Botanical Garden has held a peach blossom festival every April.
White Peach Blossoms (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The garden has nearly 10,000 peach trees, forming peach groves, slopes, and paths. Over 20 other spring bloomers like winter jasmine, forsythia, flowering almond, crabapple, and cherry blossom join the peach blossoms against a backdrop of green pines and willows, creating a magnificent spectacle. Especially notable is the fragrant white-flowered mountain peach, the first new hybrid bred by the garden itself. The pink-flowered mountain peach fills the gap between the blooming periods of wild peach and cultivated peach.
Pink Mountain Peach Blossoms (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
On both sides of the pathways leading to some scenic spots, expanses of lush green lawns roll with the terrain like huge carpets, forming another delightful natural scene. It is said that the garden now has 900,000 square meters of lawn. Walking deeper into the garden, one is greeted by a vibrant spring tableau: verdant trees, brilliant flowers, velvet lawns, clear waters reflecting the green hills—a picture of natural beauty.
A Corner of the Garden (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
They say no scenery is complete without water. The old Beijing Botanical Garden, though picturesque with its flowers and trees, lacked water features. But today the garden is entirely different. It is reported that the lake area completed in 2002 covers over 10 hectares of water surface and holds more than 100,000 cubic meters of water. From Incense Burner Peak in the Western Hills, you can clearly see this three-tiered azure water scene.
Green Hills and Azure Waters (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Looking at the lake, the water is so clear you can see the bottom. Around it, green lawns and clusters of flowers abound, and aquatic plants display myriad forms. Where the "Three Azure Ponds" connect end to end, designers made full use of the original terrain to arrange the water system, skillfully employing weirs, streams, and shallow pools to link the three ponds together. The result is a naturally winding lake surface where the view changes with every step.
Babbling Streams (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
On top of the original planting around the lake area, many new trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers were added, along with aquatic and wetland plants. The rich plant arrangement and distinctive landscape artistry created a multi-layered, colorfully splendid lake area.
Lakeside Scene (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Building on that, in 2003 the Beijing Botanical Garden launched a second-phase water system project to restore the original landscape of Cherry Valley. Now, eight lakes vie in beauty amid green hills and woods, accompanied by the sound of flowing water—a rare sight. In particular, Cherry Valley, a famous scenic spot in West Beijing that had been dry for years, once again displays babbling brooks and birdsong, an earthly paradise. It now features a rich variety of water scenes: lakes, deep pools, ponds, waterfalls, cascades, and streams, combining stillness and movement, large and small, with richly varied spaces. Here, splashing waterfalls, ancient towering trees, trickling streams, winding plank paths, and colorful flowers and trees on all sides allow visitors to truly appreciate the boundless charm of spring.
Tranquil Cherry Valley (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Beijing Botanical Garden Science Museum serves as a science education base for youngsters in Beijing. Built in 1996, it opened to the public in 1998. The museum makes full use of various modern technologies to show visitors basic knowledge about plant forms, classification, functions, and biodiversity conservation. The aim is to help visitors learn some plant basics, understand plant habitats and common knowledge of biodiversity protection, thereby raising awareness of plant and environmental protection. Experts are often invited to give special lectures to the public, spreading botanical knowledge in diverse ways.
Science Museum (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Tropical Exhibition Conservatory at Beijing Botanical Garden, with its diverse and comprehensive plant collections, is renowned both at home and abroad. The original greenhouse had many plants but was not very spacious. After a 260-million-yuan renovation, the new tropical conservatory became one of Beijing's top ten buildings of the 1990s, with a total floor area of 17,000 square meters and a site area of 5.5 hectares. The conservatory was designed by the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, themed "A Leaf's Memory of Its Roots." It features a cleverly designed sloping glass roof with intertwined "roots and stems," like a green leaf drifting down to the foot of the Western Hills. Comrade Jiang Zemin personally inscribed the three gilded characters "Wan Sheng Yuan" (Garden of All Living Things) for the tropical conservatory.
Exhibition Conservatory (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The conservatory mainly displays plants and landscapes from tropical and subtropical regions, serving as a base for biodiversity conservation, science education, scientific research, and viewing. It is divided into four main areas: Tropical Rainforest Landscape, Four Seasons Garden Landscape, Desert Plant Landscape, and the Orchid, Bromeliad, and Carnivorous Plant Room. It houses over 4,100 species (including cultivars) and more than 60,000 plants. It is an important science education base for people to understand plants, experience nature, and learn botanical knowledge, as well as a key site for plant resource conservation and scientific research.
A Corner of the Tropical Conservatory (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Tropical Rainforest Room, covering over 1,000 square meters, showcases unique phenomena of tropical rainforests: a single tree forming a forest, aerial gardens, multi-layered structures, tangled vines, buttress roots, dripping leaf tips, strangling figs, cauliflory (flowers growing on old stems), fruit growing on old trunks, and large-leaved ground cover plants. Stepping inside, you feel the richness of plant species here, with plants arranged in varying heights and densities.
The Largest Candelabra Cactus (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Here, many tall and novel plant displays greet visitors. One can see the largest strangler fig in the conservatory: a Ficus virens nearly 9 meters tall is strangling a 16-meter-tall Iraqi date palm. The fig, with its well-developed aerial roots, tightly wraps around the date palm, competing for sunlight, water, and nutrients, seriously affecting the palm's normal growth. Perhaps one day, the Iraqi date palm will die and decay from the strangling, and then visitors will see a freestanding Ficus virens shaped like a pitcher plant. This gives a vivid sense of the brutal competition for survival in the natural world.
Phalaenopsis Orchids (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The magical miracle fruit is a small shrub of the sapote family that bears fruit continuously throughout the year, native to West Africa and the Congo region. Its most remarkable feature is that after tasting it, even extremely sour or bitter foods like lemons become sweet and delicious. Additionally, here you can admire plants closely connected to Buddhist culture, such as the bodhi tree, ashoka flower, and talipot palm.
Poinsettia (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Tropical Desert Plant Room on the top floor, also known as the Cactus and Succulent Room, covers 1,200 square meters. It cultivates and displays over 1,000 species (including cultivars) of cacti and succulents, mainly from arid and semi-arid regions in the tropics and subtropics.
Desert Plant Exhibition Hall (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
These plants are highly drought-resistant. Cacti are native to the Americas, while succulents can be found in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This room is scorching hot, like a high-temperature, low-rainfall desert. After staying only a short while, I was drenched in sweat, my clothes soaked through.
Giant Barrel Cactus (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The room is further divided into sections: succulents, euphorbias, snake plants, columnar cacti, fiercely spiny cacti, cultivar display, bromeliads, aloes, agaves, and the "cloud" section, etc. Strange plants growing amid endless yellow sand are the main feature here. A golden barrel cactus 80 centimeters in diameter, a saguaro towering 5.5 meters tall, and the unique "Scarecrow" plant all showcase the novelty of this exhibition.
Cacti (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Desert rose and epiphyllum oxypetalum (queen of the night) are also found here. Agave, which blooms only once in its lifetime, is exhibited as well. Agave has the world's longest inflorescence, but it flowers just once and then the plant dies. The peculiar pencil cactus, nicknamed "milk bush" in English, is a succulent plant of the Euphorbia genus, Euphorbiaceae family, native to tropical arid regions of southeastern Africa and eastern India. It is a fleshy tree with a bizarre shape, no thorns and no leaves, hence called "bare stick tree" (光棍树). Its white sap is toxic but can be used to produce petroleum. Although leafless, it can still photosynthesize through its green branches. Additionally, many other novel plants from cactus, euphorbia, and crassula families are grown here.
Lush Arrow Bamboo (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Orchid, Bromeliad, and Carnivorous Plant Room covers 500 square meters. With artificial landscaping featuring small bridges, flowing water, dead wood, and exotic flowers, it presents a dazzling and mysterious tropical garden scene. This room mainly showcases tropical epiphytic plants like orchids and bromeliads, along with intriguing carnivorous plants and ferns. The display includes orchid species such as cattleya, phalaenopsis, cymbidium, dendrobium, and oncidium, and bromeliads like guzmania, vriesea, and aechmea. Most notably, the weird and wonderful carnivorous plants—pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, and pitcher plants (Sarracenia)—reveal the wonders of nature through their insect-eating habits.
Bromeliad (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Four Seasons Garden Room lies at the heart of the conservatory. In its 3,500 square meters, it is divided into the central garden and the palm area. The central garden features a giant fountain at its center, surrounded by tall ornamental trees and seasonal flowers that are constantly updated. Its rich colors showcase the beauty of flowers throughout the year, and walking in feels like strolling through a sea of blossoms. The palm area displays a concentrated collection of palms in myriad forms, brimming with tropical charm.
Bird of Paradise (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Here you can admire a fig tree with a trunk like a flower basket, brilliant anthuriums, poinsettias, kalanchoes, and unusual plants like the Chinese yellow banana (Musella lasiocarpa) and Medinilla magnifica. The rare coco de mer, a national treasure of the Seychelles, is displayed here. It is called the miraculous love fruit, and its shape, remarkably resembling a woman's body, showcases nature's extraordinary craftsmanship.
Four Seasons Garden (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The various ingeniously designed sub-gardens are not only an important part of Beijing Botanical Garden, but also great places for visitors to enjoy all kinds of flowers. For example, the largest rose garden in China has over 100,000 rose bushes of more than 1,000 varieties. In 2003, a new color music fountain was built at the center of the circular rose garden. On site, I saw over 100 water jets dancing to the rhythm of the music. Children were frolicking joyfully in the water and sound, turning the area into their happy paradise. Amid the bright spring garden, they fully displayed their youthful vitality.
Play at the Musical Fountain (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The Peony Garden, built in the early 1980s and covering 4.7 hectares, is the largest specialized peony garden in northern China. It has over 8,500 peonies of more than 580 varieties, including famed names like 'Wei Purple', 'Yao Yellow', 'Bean Green', 'Big Hu Red', 'Pear Blossom Snow', and 'Black Dragon Lying in the Ink Pool'. In bloom, they display a splendid array of red, white, blue, green, purple, and yellow, in countless enchanting forms. The gently undulating ground is planted with graceful trees; the 'Pavilion of Flowers' and 'Mandarin Duck Pavilion' are tucked among them, and a sculpture of the 'Peony Fairy' reclines amid the flowers. There is also a large mural based on the 'Ge Jin' story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, adding to the pleasure.
Bonsai Garden Area (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
In the Magnolia Garden, dignified white magnolias and light purple magnolias draw visitors to stop and admire. The Crabapple and Cotoneaster Garden features over ten varieties of vividly colored and graceful crabapples, with names like 'Diamond', 'Ruby', and 'Snowball', plus more than 200 superior specimens from over a dozen varieties from the U.S. and other countries, along with weeping and midget crabapples, all competing in beauty. Japanese flowering cherries and weeping cherries convey a Japanese flavor. Fragrant and colorful spring flowers like irises and redbuds also show their charm. The other specialty gardens each have their own unique qualities, attracting a flood of visitors every year.
Little Flowers by the Roadside (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
Besides its rich natural landscapes, Beijing Botanical Garden also boasts numerous cultural sites. For example, the ancient Temple of the Reclining Buddha, a thousand-year-old temple now within the garden grounds. The temple was built during the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty and renovated in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Its formal name is "Shifang Pujue Si" (Temple of Universal Awakening for All), but it is commonly called Wo Fo Si (Temple of the Reclining Buddha) because it houses a bronze statue of the reclining (parinirvana) Sakyamuni, cast in the first year of the Zhizhi reign of the Yuan Dynasty (1321).
Statue of the Reclining Buddha (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
The reclining Buddha is 5.3 meters long, 1.4 meters high on its side, and weighs 54 tons—the world's largest solid bronze reclining Buddha and a cultural treasure. The temple is quiet and elegant, with centuries-old cypresses and ginkgos embracing it. In front of the Hall of Heavenly Kings, an ancient wintersweet over 1,300 years old is widely celebrated, making it a renowned spot for flower viewing in Beijing's deep winter and early spring.
Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
As the garden covers such a large area and time was limited, I didn't go to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha or Cherry Valley Garden. But to explore the birthplace of the great literary work Dream of the Red Chamber, I visited the Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall in Yellow Leaf Village inside the garden. The memorial was built in 1983 and expanded in 1996, covering 1.8 hectares. This compound of a few rustic houses set within the vast botanical garden has a certain idyllic, otherworldly charm.
Photo in Front of the Memorial (Photo: Wang Jue)
According to records, based on research by Redologists, the great literary master Cao Xueqin lived and wrote in the area around the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in his later years. To commemorate this literary giant, the Yellow Leaf Village was artistically recreated in the southwestern part of the Beijing Botanical Garden, inspired by the poetic imagery described by his close friends Dun Cheng and Zhang Yiquan, recreating Cao's later living environment.
Inside the Memorial Hall (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
In the village, there are vegetable gardens, herbal plots, an archery field, ancient mounds, and a tavern, along with scenic spots like "River Wall and Misty Willows," "Creeping Fig Doorways," "Bamboo Fence and Thatched Tavern," "Wicker Gate in Evening Haze," etc. Additionally, cultural sites like Liang Qichao's tomb and the December 9th Movement Memorial Pavilion deep in Cherry Valley are well worth visiting.
Courtyard of the Memorial Hall (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
During this "Beijing Peach Blossom Festival and World Famous Flower Exhibition," as time went on, various beautiful flowers in the bulb plant display area, mainly tulips, bloomed in succession. Over 150 varieties of tulips, hyacinths, fritillaries, giant ornamental onions, and nearly one million bulbs were planted, transforming the bulb exhibition area into a sea of flowers. Notably, the exhibition introduced many new and superior foreign varieties, such as ice cream tulips, giant ornamental onions, and nearly 10 varieties of fritillaria, all rare in China. Besides the stunning bulb flowers, a large number of aromatic plants were also grown, so visitors could catch their distinctive fragrance from a distance.
Blooming Flowers (Photo: Feng Ganyong)
As the visit drew to a close, Deputy Director Zhao Shiwei told me: "People who have long lived in cities with noise, exhaust, and environmental pollution will feel incredibly refreshed and joyful here, able to fully relax both body and mind. While enjoying the flowers and scenery, they can also learn some science knowledge. This is especially beneficial for young parents visiting with children. We hope to build Beijing Botanical Garden into a renowned Beijing tourist destination integrating science popularization, sightseeing, scientific research, and plant resource conservation and development. We warmly welcome tourists from home and abroad to visit Beijing Botanical Garden." I haven't been back to Beijing Botanical Garden for many years, but I believe if I revisit it, it will surely present an even more delightful and flower-filled scene. (Text and photos: Feng Ganyong)
