CHAPTER V 

 GARDENS AND GARDENING 



Favourite Flowers Cultivated by the Chinese 



ORNAMENTAL gardening has been practised in China 

 from time immemorial, and the people are endowed 

 with an innate love for flowers and gardens. Floral 

 calendars are kept in every house above the poorest, and 

 volumes of poems have been written in praise of the Moutan 

 Paeony, Camellia, Plum, Chrysanthemum, Lotus-lily, Bamboo, 

 and other flowers. The appearance of the blooms on the more 

 conspicuous flowering shrubs is eagerly watched for, and ex- 

 cursions into the country are taken to enjoy the sight of the 

 first bursting into blossom of favourite plants. The dwelling 

 of the poorest peasant is usually enlivened by an odd plant 

 or two, and the courtyard of the shopkeeper and innkeeper 

 always boasts a few flowers of one sort or another. The 

 temple grounds are frequently very beautiful, and attached to 

 the houses of the cultured and wealthy are gardens often of 

 great interest. In the neighbourhood of wealthy cities like 

 Soochou, Hanchou, and Canton, are public and private 

 gardens which are famed throughout the length and breadth 

 of the Empire. The finest example I have seen is fittingly 

 associated with the emperor's summer palace, a few miles 

 outside Peking. There Chinese gardening may be seen at 

 its best, and it calls forth admiration from all visitors. 



Chinese landscape-gardening is represented at its best in 

 the so-called " Japanese gardens " of to-day. The Japanese 

 have undoubtedly carried the art to a higher state of perfec- 

 tion than the Chinese, but the latter unquestionably originated 

 it. In all these gardens the love of the grotesque predominates, 

 and the landscape effect is essentially artificial ; yet in accord- 



