A Preliminary Study On Plant Landscape Of Ming & Qing Royal Gardens

Plants are essential elements of the landscape design. At the background of 5000-year Chinese culture, plant landscape of royal garden with distinctive national identity and cultural meaning was shaped among the classical garden. Ming & Qing royal gardens developed to the mature peak in terms of quantity and skill, plant landscape of those remains known to the world and the design ideas are treasures of Chinese garden art, with indelible historic significance and value of the times. Based on the study of pertinent literature and historical data, combined with tips about the field, this paper summarized that the construction of plant landscape of Ming & Qing royal gardens followed these principals:matching species with the site, ornamental and practical, political and cultural. In plant species choice, pines and cypresses were used as the tone trees. Native plants, symbolic plants, plants compared with man of honor, unusual flowers and agricultural plants were frequently applied. Plants used in Ming & Qing royal gardens were summed up with a total of more than 200 species. Through analyzing landscape with the theme of plant, and integrating plants with other landscape elements, such as mountains, water, buildings and pathways, methods of planting design were summarized. Plant landscape of Ming and Qing royal gardens were aimed to create a landscape with the artistic conception of Emperor's idea to ruling a country, or plants compared with man of honor, or poetry and painting sense. Plant landscape of Qing royal gardens was developed on the basis of Ming dynasty, and was more spectacular, had more diverse landscape and richer cultural meaning. Then plant landscape of several extant and fairly complete Ming & Qing royal gardens were researched, such as the Imperial Garden, Beihai of Xiyuan, Jingyi Garden, the Imperial Summer Resort, and some of the status plans of the local plant landscape of these gardens were drawn. Ultimately this paper summed up the significance of plant landscape of Ming & Qing royal gardens and the way of their protection, restoration and innovation, then discussed how to inherit and develop the traditional planting design ideas in the 21st century.