Gardens

It is quite amazing how important gardens are to the Chinese people. The gardens everywhere you go are quite amazing. I don't know that we have anything to compare them to.

When I arrived it was only weeks after they had snow and a very cold winter. All the trees were lifeless, everything looked brown and barren. I wondered if everything would every grow in the soil that was almost rocky and full of clay. Although there were pots of colour.

The gardeners work laboriously to ensure that all is taken care of. The gardens are always being updated. Sometimes they leave the flowers in their pots and put a border around it. I don't quite understand this but I'm guessing it makes it easier to replace.

The gardeners weed and change the pots and then the colour scheme changes. When the weather started to warm up green shoots appeared from nowhere. The brown barren land changed to a rainbow of colour almost overnight. The gardens look spectacular.

Overnight there are always changes. Trees are removed and replaced. The lawn around the tree is replaced. It is hard to know that there was any activity at all.

Most people don't have gardens at their homes because they simply live in high rise apartments. You can understand why street scape is so important to them.

The gardenia is a plant I like. I have them in my garden at home and the attraction it is more to do with the perfume. Well we have them in the school gardens and I have been waiting for them to bloom. The first flower opened up this week and I'm looking forward to the others opening soon.

So soon we will have a pretty delicate white flower and a wonderful fragrance that fills the air. The flower itself is short lived and I hope I don't miss it. I might even steal a couple for my apartment!