Binjiang Forest Park puts on display exuberant azalea blossom
The Shanghai Binjiang Forest Park is now suffused with bright red, pink and violet as it is ready to unveil the Shanghai Azalea Exhibition on Wednesday.
Covering 120 hectares by the river side where the Huangpu and Yangtze rivers meet in the city's Pudong New Area, the park will presents some 400 varieties of blooming azalea, including two 200-year-old 2.3 meters high azalea trees which feature rare violet colors.
The park’s azalea garden crawls on a space of 100 mu, or 6.6 hectares where the purple, pink, red, white and yellow azalea shrubs have splashed a wide range of luxuriant colors across the park.
Some azalea shrubs are arranged amid hill, rocks, river or besides waterfall and other plants such as maple and hackberry. An azalea bonsai display will also be presented.
The exhibition will run through early May. The period between the upcoming Qingming Festival holiday on April 5 and May Day holidays is the prime blossom time.
The park's other flowers such as Chinese violet cress, peach flower, magnolia, cherry and redleaf cherry plum are presently also in full bloom.
Shutterbug contest, calligraphy-painting exhibition and orienteering game have been planned during the exhibition.
The Zuibaichi and Fangta parks in the city Songjiang District will also host their azalea displays, blending the flower exhibition with the classic gardens there.
Standing together with the primrose and gentian as “the beauty queens”of flowers in China, azalea in the Chinese culture is known as "thinking of home bush" , or sixiang shu, and is immortalized in the ancient poetry by Chinese Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770).