Tag Archive for: Chinese Gardens

Two Celebrations, Three Visits and Endless Beauty

Like many of you, I am focused on Valentine’s Day….making special desserts for my family and distributing Valentines and hoping I get something nice from my special Valentine :^)

But there is also another special day to be celebrated, and that is the Chinese New Year.  Now, I am not Chinese….but our family does celebrate the Chinese New Year.  Why do you ask?  Well, that is because 3 of our 5 children are Chinese – we adopted each of them from China.  As a result, we were fortunate to have visited China three times.

And so in honor of the Chinese New Year, I would love to share with you some of the beautiful landscapes of China we visited….

beautiful landscapes of China

 The hills surrounding Hangzhou, Summer 2003

beautiful landscapes of China

Martyrs Park, Changsha, Fall 2007

beautiful landscapes of China

Purple Orchid Tree (Bauhinia), Guanzhou, Winter 2005

beautiful landscapes of China

Martyrs Park, Changsha, Fall 2007

beautiful landscapes of China

Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, Summer 2003

beautiful landscapes of China

 My husband and daughter, exploring the gardens around West Lake, Hangzhou, Winter 2005

Lotus growing on West Lake, Hangzhou, Summer 2003

Lotus growing on West Lake, Hangzhou, Summer 2003

Martyrs Park, Changsha, Fall 2007

Martyrs Park, Changsha, Fall 2007

The gardens of West Lake, Hangzhou, Winter 2005

The gardens of West Lake, Hangzhou, Winter 2005

Evidently, we are not walking fast enough for my daughter, who forged on ahead.

Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, Summer 2003

Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, Summer 2003

Shamian Island, Guanghzou, Winter 2005

Shamian Island, Guanghzou, Winter 2005

I was completely unprepared for how beautiful the landscapes and gardens of China were.  I hope to return when my children a bit older so that we can visit their homeland and see it’s beauty.

And so in closing, I wish for you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day and also Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy 11th Gotcha Day!

Dragons In The Garden and Perilous Hills

Chinese dragons

Chinese dragons

Who would expect to find dragons in the garden?  Well these two Chinese dragons look quite at home in the park gardens.

When I first visited China, I fell in love with the beautiful landscaping that I found everywhere.  However, I also found some interesting anomalies as well which I will share along with some photos of the beautiful landscape areas.

Chinese dragons

This November scene above was found at Martyr’s Park in Changsha.  If you look at the trees in the background, you can see that they stake them rather differently then we do.

Chinese dragons

Look carefully and you can see that there are young trees beginning to grow out of either side of the window of this Catholic Church in Guangzhou.

Chinese dragons

OK, there are no anomalies here, just a beautiful setting.

Chinese dragons

While visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing, we were warned to be careful and be sure not to climb those perilous hills.  So, I warned my kids who looked at me like I was crazy ;^)

Chinese dragons

The scenery was just breathtaking in many of the areas we visited.

Chinese dragons

Don’t you think that this tree has outgrown it’s original planting area?  Maybe they should have read the plant label ahead of time to see how large this tree would get.

Chinese dragons

Beauty can be found everywhere, such as this museum garden in Hangzhou.

Beautiful Banyan trees

Beautiful Banyan trees just a block from our hotel.

Beautiful Banyan trees

Okay, I admit that this photo has nothing to do with gardens or gardening.  But, since there are two trees in the background I thought I could include it. This street worker had propped up his ladder in the middle of the intersection and had it resting against  the wires.

I have more pictures to share, some beautiful and others that are humorous, but that is for another post….