Official opening of Lan Yuan Chinese Garden

Lan Yuan Chinese Garden was officially opened on 16th July 2008, having been formally blessed in the presence of in the presence of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Chinese ambassador Zhang Yuanyuan and opened to the public on 8 June 2008.

The Garden is designed so that as you walk around the lake, the features of the Garden reveal themselves to you in the way that you might unfold a scroll. This gives the illusion of a larger space, and one new scene appearing after another.

There are over 2000 plants inside the Garden and 1000 along the exterior walls. In 2008 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Yu Gardens in Shanghai for advice to be provided by their expert gardeners for the maintenance of Lan Yuan's plants. 90% of the Chinese plants for the garden are sourced locally and grow successfully in the coastal Otago climate. Some of the trees are artificially shaped and given a patina to sugest great age in keeping with a scholar's garden.

Source material:

Lan Yuan 蘭園: A Garden of Distant Longing

James Beattie, Duncan Campbell, Poetry: Sue Wootton, Photography: Wynston Cooper