Lingering Garden
Suzhou’s Lingering Garden is one of the four most famous gardens in China. Occupying an area of over 23,000 square meters, the garden has a traditional Qing dynasty (1644-1911) style with exquisite rockeries, magnificent halls, and rippling water features. The garden was listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The garden was first built by Xu Tai in 1593, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). During the Qing Dynasty, it was purchased by Liu Shu, who was a calligraphy lover and a collector of oddly shaped stones. His two passions can still be seen in the garden with the many rockeries and calligraphy carvings in the garden.
Like all traditional Chinese gardens, the Lingering Garden was designed to imitate nature in a way that is artistic with a peaceful atmosphere. Each rock, tree, and plant were placed with a great deal of thought and the pavilions, halls, and temples which dot the garden were created to be a part of the natural landscape.
The garden can be divided into four parts, the central, northern, eastern, and western sections. The central section is the original garden from the Ming Dynasty. The other sections were added by subsequent owners in the Qing Dynasty. Classic architecture dominates the eastern part of the central section with water features and hills are in the western part. There is a large rockery in the western part which is covered with ancient maple trees. In autumn, the maple trees turn red adding a burst of color. The Northern section of the garden used to be a vegetable garden, but has been transformed into an outdoor museum of bonsai trees, some of which are many hundreds of years old. The four parts of the garden are connected via a 700 meter long corridor.
