Starting the day in Chuxiong we travelled to Dali by way of a 3 hour coach ride. Arriving at Mr Zhangs garden for our first visit of the day. This garden is exactly as you would imagine a “Chinese” garden. Lots of small “rooms” with in which there are impressive displays of large stones, plants and buildings. One word, Stunning!
After a banquet lunch we set off across Yunnan to Baoshan. The scenery on the way is breathtaking. With the high peaks of the mountains and the deep depths of the valleys. Most of these hills are cultivated for vegetable growing. Standing would be an achievement let alone working on the slopes! You can only marvel at the plant hunters who trekked across this inhospitable land in search of plants to grace our gardens. A 4 hour coach drive was bad enough.
On the outskirts of Baoshan are a collection of nurseries and market gardens come allotments on an absolutely massive scale. Something which I have never seen and to be honest will ever see again. As far as the eye can see, on both sides of the road, every inch of available land is used for growing veg including mile upon mile of poly tunnels (yes miles!)
To top all this two nurseries stood out. The first handles truly massive plants, we are talking fully mature trees from Fig to Camellia being moved here (see pics you won’t believe your eyes)
And last we visited a small high street nursery which was nice but the very last plants we saw were Camellia ‘Scented Treasure’ a lovely semi double pink with fragrance. This is a plant we must get.
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