Authentic Chinese garden growing lasting legacy

Horticulturalists create special world in heart of England, Zheng Wanyin reports in Manchester.

On Aug 21, sunshine bathed Greater Manchester, which is so often doused in drizzle, no matter the season.

When Eva Falck-Wall Simpson walked into the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden Bridgewater in Worsley, from the south, and meandered along its stream in a northerly direction, a newly completed Chinese pavilion on the bank of the waterway immediately caught her eye.

Simpson is a frequent visitor to the garden, which is 10 kilometers west of central Manchester, England, and has attracted millions of visitors since its opening in 2021.She decided to make a quick sketch of the authentic Chinese-style structure that had recently taken shape.

"I've seen it when they've been building it," she says. "You get a sense of calm when you come here. It is like one of the buzzword, mindfulness, as you just sink into the garden."

The pavilion, which is surrounded by woodland, is hexagonal. Its roof, converging in a crown on top, appears in stone grey, as it is made from brick and tiles fired by Chinese kilns. The six rings of columns that support the head are brick red and made of Chinese fir and stone.

It was on that day in August that the pavilion, named Qing Yin, which refers to bright and clear music, was unveiled to the public. A carving on the structure reads: "Why must exquisite music come from stringed and bamboo instruments? Clear sounds echoing between mountains and rivers are more moving."

All materials used in the construction of the pavilion were shipped to the United Kingdom, and put together piece by piece to be the focal point of the Chinese Streamside Garden, another classically inspired Chinese-style piece of architecture in its early years at Garden Bridgewater.

When completed, it will be the first true Chinese garden of significance in the UK, with 11 distinct garden spaces over a 2.8-hectare area.

Carefully designed by Chinese artisans and horticultural experts, the garden draws inspiration from a real Chinese garden and integrates profound Chinese philosophical ideas into its composition.

It also marks a representative Sino-British cultural exchange project, celebrating close collaboration between the two nations in garden arts, which was not suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The story started in 2018 at a breakfast table.

100 percent bona fide

The initial plan of the Royal Horticultural Society, or RHS, was to create an oriental garden within the Garden Bridgewater.

In May 2018, when Lee Kai Hung met Sue Biggs at a breakfast served at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a century-old gardening festival held in London, the retired Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist said to then director-general of the RHS: "Look, change the oriental garden to a Chinese garden, and I will raise the finance for you."

Lee, who is 88 this year, has been committed to improving the UK's understanding of China for many years.

His charity, the Lee Kai Hung Foundation, which was established in 1992, has endowed the Manchester China Institute at the University of Manchester, and the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery at the Manchester Museum.

When the deal on the Chinese Streamside Garden was done, a founding and working committee, comprised of prominent members of the Chinese community in Manchester and England's Northwest, was soon established by Lee to raise the first 500,000 pounds ($606,249). Lee himself donated 1.8 million pounds to the RHS in 2020.

"It is the first time that the Chinese community has worked so closely and successfully with a UK mainstream cultural institution," says Gerry Yeung, executive chair of the Chinese Streamside Garden Founding and Working Committee.

The China Flower Association, as the coordination unit on the Chinese side, and the Yangzhou Classical Garden Construction Company, as the contractor, also joined the project to turn the vision for the garden into a reality.

"A genuine Chinese garden has its design philosophy to follow. First, harmony should be achieved between humans and nature by utilizing the existing terrain to create gardens. As the saying goes: 'Though made by man, it appears as if created by heaven,'" says Jiang Zehui, president of the China Flower Association.

Jiang explains that "the so-called nature in a Chinese garden is, in fact, a more humanized one", pointing out that the rocks, the ponds, the plants and the architecture, recognized as the four features of a traditional Chinese garden, are usually not randomly composed but have their symbolic associations, which reveals another layer of the Chinese design philosophy: meanings are beyond what has been expressed.

In the Chinese Streamside Garden, more than 1,000 plants of Chinese origin will be planted to reflect a common theme: a celebration of the four seasons.

An identical space can have different scenery as a result of seasonal changes, while at the same time, some of the gardens are meticulously designed to highlight the splendor of particular seasons, according to Jiang.

For example, the "Autumn Fireworks", full of deciduous trees and shrubs, will create a golden panorama in the fall.

The Chinese horticultural experts who took part in the project derived the idea for the garden from Geyuan, a private residential garden in Yangzhou, in East China's Jiangsu province, which is known for its seasonal rock gardens, with four rockery areas, each representing a single season.

Stones of different hues and shapes are piled up to paint a colorful landscape in the garden.

"Mountains in spring are flamboyant, like a bright smile, in summer are verdant, like water drops, in autumn are pure, like a light makeup, and in winter are bleak, like a sleeping old man," Jiang says.

"In the Streamside Garden, the scenery can be described as follows: 'Spring is for blossoming flowers, summer is for seeking shades, autumn is for fall leaves, and winter is for outstretched branches.'"

And the Qing Yin Pavilion, enveloped by the wavering shadow of green trees, is not merely a place for viewing the scenery, it represents music, one of the four artistic talents that are considered to be essential for ancient Chinese scholars to master.

"The construction of the pavilion is intended for visitors to understand the historical connection between nature and self-development of Chinese literati," say the artisans from the Yangzhou Classical Garden Construction Company.

"For centuries, the natural world has long been conceived by Chinese scholars as a place for self-cultivation. Men escape to mountains to purify their spirit and find renewal, with a series of poems, songs and paintings being created to reflect the viewers' mental world. And the garden, as a miniaturized landscape, is superb for scholars to concentrate on arts."

Three additional pavilions are set to follow around October 2025, representing chess, calligraphy and painting, the three remaining artistic talents. The four interlinked pavilions will eventually form the Yangzhou Scholar's Garden, the beating heart of the Chinese Streamside Garden.

"It is the first time ever that a Chinese design, Chinese manufacturers, Chinese craftsmen, came to the UK and made a genuine classic garden," says Yeung.

A testament to ties

When proposed, the Chinese Streamside Garden was also expected to be a symbol of Sino-British cultural exchanges, celebrating the strong horticultural links between the two countries, which date back hundreds of years.

For the past five years, the RHS has been working closely with the Chinese side to develop a unique fusion of Chinese and British horticulture.

China has historically made a significant contribution to British horticulture through the introduction and development of Chinese native species, especially during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when plant hunters discovered a plethora of varieties in China and transported them back to the UK, according to Marcus Chilton-Jones, curator of Garden Bridgewater.

The latest report on the state of the ecology and environment in China released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in May 2023 suggests that a total of 39,330 botanical species have been discovered in China.

"The plants that are endemic, indigenous to the UK is only 1,500, and because of that lowness of biodiversity within British gardens, the whole industry was historically reliant on the importation of plants from other parts of the globe," says Chilton-Jones.

Since the original introduction to the UK, plants with Chinese ancestry, such as southern Indian azalea, panicle hydrangea and snakebark maple, were hybridized to evolve into diverse varieties and began to influence local gardening traditions.

To showcase that interesting fusion, RHS experts carefully designed a meadow around the Qing Yin Pavilion, where a range of Chinese and British plants, which look very similar in forms, colors and textures, blend harmoniously.

"It is only when you get in close and look at the details that you see a point of difference," says Chilton-Jones.

The horticultural design also aims to bring the Chinese Scholar's Garden into the public eye in a "soft, subtle but delightful way", as the curator puts it.

"So, visitors, when moving up toward the Chinese garden from the southern side, get a very soft transformation, build up intensity, become more and more overt. Where the magic happens is at the beating heart of the place, the Scholar's Garden, which is overtly Chinese in every way.

"It will be there after this build-up that ends with a crescendo, this unveiling of a surprise in the middle, and that should delight visitors and create a sense of wonder."

For Chilton-Jones, the garden design is an example of how "the best of British design combines with the best of Chinese".

Soon, more areas featuring China-UK horticultural ties will be built, including the "Fusion Forest".

"We still have many things to celebrate," says Clare Matterson, director-general of the RHS, who adds that the Qing Yin Pavilion is just the beginning.

On the day of its unveiling, a ceremony featured a dancing dragon puppet manipulated by a group of performers, alongside the resounding drums and gongs that drew large crowds to the Chinese Streamside Garden.

People come and people go, while the garden, as a gift from the Chinese community, as an iconic expression of Chinese culture by the Chinese and British garden experts, and as a testament to China-UK friendship, will stand in the UK for many generations to come.

Contact the writer at zhengwanyin@mail.chinadailyuk.com