Splendid Jiangsu, Ecologically Smart Valley" In Full Bloom

On April 16, 2021, the 11th Jiangsu Horticultural Expo with the theme of "Splendid Jiangsu, Ecologically Smart Valley" opened in Jiangning Tangshan, Nanjing, east of China's Jiangsu Province."

The expo is a grand exhibition of classical horticulture of Jiangsu Province. The expo park of the Horticultural Expo (Expo Garden) is located in the east gate of Nanjing and the core area of Zidong. The 13 city gardens in Jiangsu, based on their local history, culture and horticulture characteristics, blend the old and new features perfectly to represent delicate gardens, revealing the exquisite and splendid beauty of classical gardens. It is understood that at present, the Expo Garden has fully opened online real-name ticket booking.

This practice of Nanjing fulfills the idea that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets". Revolving around the complete and comprehensive new development philosophy which is to be implemented accurately, Nanjing has steadily promoted the construction of "an innovative city and a beautiful ancient capital", and made every effort to build a new landmark of cultural leisure and tourism in Tangshan, Jiangning district.

This is Jiangning’s exploration, which implements the "Two-sided Urban Governance" (ecological restoration and city repair). Led by a top expert team, dozens of design masters have treated the quarries and activated the industrial remains, showing an amazing metamorphosis from abandoned mining pits to an urban "Peach Garden" where human and nature coexist harmoniously. As a result, a stunning group of mountain gardens is blooming glaring brilliance of nature...

Nanjing Jiangning adheres to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and the indicative spirit of his important address during his inspection to Jiangsu Province. Under the strong leadership of provinces and cities, Nanjing Jiangning is bound to resolutely shoulder the mission of "Leading the way, striving to be a demonstration, walking in the forefront". Take every stitch of embroidery seriously, and even a fine embroidery needle can give a finishing touch to the embroidery work. Centering on "Never Ending" and "Always Blooming", we strive to build the Expo Garden into "Four High Parks" of "high energy paradise, high-quality garden, high-level park and high-quality home" with unique ingenuity and sheer efforts.

High Energy Paradise: A Ecological And Cultural Tourism City To Promote The Rise Of Zidong

According to the deployment of the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government, Zidong area will take "the Yangtze River Delta Integration Pilot Area, the Nanjing Zhenjiang and Yangzhou Integration Core Area, the Optimal Ecological Innovation Area, and the New Benchmark of Ecological Cultural Tourism" as the development goal, and build "the City of Innovation, Cultural Tourism, Industry and Ecology".

Why does the Expo Garden favor Jiangning? According to the relevant person in charge from Jiangsu Expo Garden Construction and Development Co. Ltd, the Expo Garden lies in the ecological corridor of Qinglong Mountain, Huanglong Mountain and Baohua Mountain and the greenway network divided by ecological landscape patterns, which is an important ecological node, for it is rich in mountain forest vegetation, industrial heritage, mine craters, precipices and other featured resources. The Expo Garden is located in Jiangning Tangshan. On the one hand, Tangshan is a national tourism resort with abundant ecological resource endowment. It is of great significance to promote the whole Zidong area’s ecological environment and boost high-quality development. On the other hand, this area is surrounded by many mountains, such as Kong Mountain, Xian Mountain and Bangchui Mountain. The quarrying of stones created huge fault walls along the mountains. The Expo Garden is located here to carry out regenerative restoration and create a representative work of "Two-sided Urban Governance".

The Expo Garden will be built into a group of mountain gardens -- "Nanjing Garden", to enhance the global influence of Tangshan National Tourism Resort. This responsibility, where Jiangning’s mission lies, is endowed by the Provincial Municipal Party Committee. As a heavyweight project to support the Zidong Cultural Tourism City, every link of the Expo Garden, from planning, construction to landing, shows the ambition and aspiration of building a modern cultural tourism complex: in addition to elaborately building 13 Jiangsu city gardens and inheriting Jiangsu classical gardens and horticulture, the Expo Garden also exquisitely lays out the "3+2" system, which stands for three classic tourism industries of catering retail, hotel exhibition and leisure and entertainment, and two emerging cultural industries of the cultural exhibition and architectural design.

Through various formats and diversified experiences, the Expo Garden provides tourists with a rich experience integrating vision, material, spirit and taste.

Here, you can appreciate glorious blooms in spring and brilliant flowers in summer, feast your eyes on flamboyant Chinese tallow trees in autumn and verdant wheat in winter;

Here, Zidong Pavilion is the best place to enjoy the sunrise in Nanjing, a collection of classic Jiangsu gardens, and a romantic Huahai Tunnel through which electric trains travel...

The Expo Garden is also an intelligent scenic spot dominated by AI. Tourists can enter and consume by face-swiping. There are also self-driving cars and unmanned restaurants, shops and hotels in the park so that tourists can enjoy unprecedented convenience and efficiency.

High-Quality Garden: One Garden Connects "Two Mountains"

Entering the Expo Garden, visitors can enjoy the traditional Jiangsu horticulture and feel the concept of "Green Development" and "Ecological Priority" everywhere.

The concept of "Ecological Priority" and "Harmonious Coexistence of Man and Nature" is fully reflected in many details of the Expo Garden. Taking a bird's-eye view of the Expo Garden, the Cliffside Flower Valley, Time Art Valley, Jiangsu Flavor-Lingering Valley and Cloud Pond, Dream Valley are distributed naturally from west to east by the mountain terrain, as if they grow naturally and blend in with the surrounding valleys.

Take Bei 'an Gate as an example. It is located in the north of the Expo Garden and is a natural entrance surrounded by mountains on three sides. With the help of the grassy slope terrain, the entrance forms the landscape of the land. The theme of the visitor service center is "The Smile of the Earth", which, seen from a distance, looks like the extension of the mirrored lawn; and seems like a corner lifted slightly by the earth. Visitors can walk from the lawn to the roof to enjoy the vast and wide landscape of the earth, truly returning to nature and blending in with nature.

Dongning Gate is located in the east of the Expo Garden, which combines the original houses and trees. Being exposed to corridors, indulge in Jinling city walls and appreciate the mural painting composed of natural landscapes. It is the contemporary expression of the traditional Chinese relationship between human and nature that modern architecture and rich natural mountain forest forming a delightful contrast. The Jiangsu Flavor-Lingering Valley system innovatively designs and displays 13 prefecture-level cities’s garden features and integrates with the unique geological background to form a picturesque Expo Garden in Jiangsu.

In Wang Jianguo’s opinion, the academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Southeast University, the expo will leave the urban residents generous legacies and an aesthetic experience field full of plumpness, richness, diversity, cultural and historical depth. " The Expo Garden will become a transformation model for other cities in terms of the practice of 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets' and the construction of ecological civilization."

Protect the environment like we protect our eyes. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangning will deeply study and understand the instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping's indicative address during his inspection to Jiangsu Province, including taking "coordinated promotion of high-quality economic development and high-level ecological environment protection" as the mainline, paying more attention to green development, environment quality, risk prevention and control and mechanism innovation. Only in doing so can we fully unleash the "multiplier effect" of high-quality development of green economy, and comprehensively take the forefront of ecological civilization construction .

High-Level Park: A Full Embrace Of The Brilliance

Since 2018, Cui Kai, academician of China Architecture Design and Research Institute, Wang Jianguo, academician of Southeast University, and other masters have been in charge of the planning of the Expo Garden and confirmed the functional layout of "123456", namely, "a landmark building, two light intelligence projects, three main entrances, four beautiful flower valleys, five boutique hotels and six supporting functions".

The most appealing area is the urban exhibition area. Chen Wei, professor of the school of Architecture, director of the Institute of Architectural History and Theory in Southeast University, leads the design. The domestic top Suzhou Expo, two Zhejiang ancient architectural schools, and Central Asia Garden and Shanghai Botanical Garden, two gardens which have ever undertaken the construction of World Expo and the G20 Summit, participate in the construction, skilfully crafting every detail to create a high level of horticulture products in East China and even the country.

Enter the Expo Garden, and have a panoramic view of Jiangsu classic gardens. Through the creative extraction of classical garden elements in Jiangsu, Chen Wei's team has integrated the expression of garden culture and garden skills in various places. It is committed to inheriting garden classics, taking the ancient as the bedrock of creation and reproducing the beautiful landscape of Jiangsu gardens.

Taking Nanjing Garden as an example. The main building, Jingyang Building, makes steel as its "bone", and the outer layer is wrapped with teak as its "flesh", which delicately presents the cleverness and magnificence of the main building of the royal garden. The whole Nanjing Garden is centered on the Tianyuan Pool, in which there is an island named Penglai, which is romantic and elegant and depicts the landscape of the six dynasties. Piling on the side of the pool, the ethereal mountains, supplemented by the simple and comfortable buildings, form three layers of water, which reproduces the elegant aesthetics in the transformation period of Chinese classical gardens, making people feel as if they were in glorious scenes of Jinling in history.

The other 12 gardens also bear their characteristics. Zhenjiang Garden reproduces the shape of Beigu Mountain Pavilion in the Song Dynasty; Suzhou Garden is based on the famous Canglang Pavilion built in the Northern Song Dynasty, showing a unique style of garden with unaffected culture; Xuzhou Garden takes the site of the large Han Dynasty quarry in Yunlong Mountain, creating an atmosphere full of ancient flavor and imposing grandeur.

Gardening design is worth paying attention. According to Guo Jianping’s introduction, who is director of landscape design of Shanghai New Garden Company, Chinese garden category includes royal garden, private Jiangnan garden (Jiangnan refers to areas in the south of the Yangtze River), among which Jiangnan garden is concise, simple but elegant, refreshing, and confluences a lot of traditional culture and literati thoughts. The layout of the Expo Garden is based on the concept of "The Tang Dynasty Landscape", in which the layout of vegetation and rockery all reflect the garden concept of Jiangnan garden, full of the artistic unity of nature and man.

Jiangning, as a national regional tourism demonstration area, will continue to make efforts to promote the integration of "Tourism +", give full play to the comprehensive, motivational and universal functions of the tourism industry, and form a new pattern of regional tourism development, enabling the city brand connotation of "coming to Jiangning to weave happiness".

High-Quality Home: "Two-Sided Urban Governance" Makes Quarries Full Of Vitality

The Expo Garden, which used to be quarries, is located in the area circled by Purple Mountain, Qixia Mountain, Baohua Mountain, Tangshan four scenic areas, planning an area of about 345 hectares.

Under Xi Jinping's ecological civilization’s guidence, Jiangning actively carried out "ecological restoration and urban repair" aimed at these quarries, and meticulously designed the Expo Garden project.

During the construction planning, the Expo Garden adopted the methods such as forest conservation, forest feature-ricing, minimally invasive restoration, landscape integration. These methods play an important role in building a green ecological system, cultivating natural vegetation and reshaping vegetation buffer space, restoring wild habitat. In doing so, the original excessively developed ecosystem is comprehensively restored into a multi-level urban landscape ecosystem of wonders.

Bian Hui, project executive manager of Jiangsu Expo Garden, the construction side of the Expo Garden, General Contracting Company of China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau Co. Ltd, cited an example that the construction side reconstructed the nearly 30-meter-high cliff in the original city exhibition park, governed the mire drainage of 40,000 square meters and comprehensively remedied 30,000 square meters of bad karst geology. Hence, ecological restoration has achieved good results.

A series of new technologies and techniques have been adopted in the ecological restoration project. "To treat 40,000 square meters of abandoned mud, we innovatively adopted in-situ chemical consolidation construction technology to solve the problem that conventional foundation reinforcement construction machinery cannot work on soft soil." Bian Hui used a vivid metaphor that mire management is equivalent to curing the tofu jelly to form tofu, and then continue the consolidation processing. Finally, it can be operated by heavy machinery. This technology was originally used in coastal tidal flat management, and was first introduced into construction.

"The Expo Garden will 'never end' and Nanjing will 'always bloom'." One related person in charge of the construction of the Expo Garden said, to achieve this goal, the prospective ecological layout, culture and forms strengthen the diverse experience, and strive to let visitors realize "experience thousands of years of history in one day, tour the whole Jiangsu Province in one city, understand Nanjing in one district, love Jiangning in one garden, comprehend horticulture in one scene and crave for revisit in one visit!"

By taking concrete actions to implement the idea that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", Jiangning puts ecological civilization construction in a prominent position and integrates it into the whole progress of economic, political, cultural and social construction. Focusing on improving ecological quality, solving major environmental problems and improving environmental governance capacity, Jiangning has successfully embarked on a path of green development featuring sound interaction between the ecology and the economy.