Iceland poppies in the Ma’anchi Park, Lucheng District

Tulips in the Huangshi Hill Park, Longwan District

Peach blossoms in the Xiuyu Park, Ouhai District

March 20 marks the start of the Spring Equinox, one of the 24 Chinese solar terms, representing the regeneration of life and the hope of growth, with flowers blooming, grass turning green, and trees sprouting new leaves… The Spring Equinox also starts the best time of the year for outings and flower appreciation.

It is learned from the Urban Management and Law Enforcement Bureaus of Lucheng, Longwan, and Ouhai Districts, the city’s parks and main roads are tremendously beautiful in the warm and fragrant spring.

Lucheng District

Iceland poppies and multi-colored rapeseed flowers repaint the city

Location: Ma’anchi Park

Ma’anchi Park is famous for its tulip festival. Though tulips there are about to wither away, the Iceland poppies and multi-colored rapeseed flowers in the park have already made their grand debut.

The spring can be found where rapeseed flowers bloom. Rapeseed flowers are entering the blossom season currently. Compared with the traditional golden yellow ones, multi-colored rapeseed flowers, cultivated through cross-breeding, possess higher ornamental value, longer flowering period, and better flower quality. Colored in orange, pink, white, light yellow, and golden yellow, the rape flowers bloom silently in the Ma’anchi Park, which, from a distance, looks like one of Monet’s gardens, attracting curious citizens to take photos, and sounds of amazement can be heard from time to time.

“This year, the Ma’anchi Park has planted about 1,000 sqm of multi-colored rapeseed flowers, of which the majority are on the island only accessible by boats, and the rest are on the peninsula. Apart from the rape flowers, there are also nearly 800 sqm of Iceland poppies planted in the park,” the person in charge of the Danan Landscaping Management Office of Lucheng District Landscaping Management Center said.

Iceland poppies are native to the arctic region of Eurasia and North America. Once they bloom one after another in shades of a variety of colors, they are just ultimately elegant and beautiful.

Longwan District

2,000 sqm of tulips flower in spring

Location: Huangshi Hill Park

If you have missed the tulip festival in the Ma’anchi Park, you may appreciate the 2,000 sqm of tulips in the Huangshi Hill Park.

On March 22, the third Huangshi Hill Park Tulip Festival — “Meet Tulips with Happiness and Prosperity” was initiated. Multi-colored blossoms sway in the wind against the blue sky and green fields, creating a romantic spring picture.

This year, the festival displays more than 20 varieties of tulips such as Sunny Prince, Purple Flag, Synaeda Blue, and Apricot Pride, in various colors including orange, yellow, pink, purple and so on. Although it is a tulip festival, citizens can also enjoy the blossoms of pompon chrysanthemums, garden verbenas, crevice alumroots, rhododendrons, purple-leaf plums, magnolias, cherry blossoms, and other seasonal flowers, in a scene of floral spring.

On the day the festival opened, over a hundred pots of tulips were freely given to the visitors.

Ouhai District

Peach blossoms, magnolias, and purple-leaf plums all burst into bloom

Location: Xiuyu Park, etc.

The “floriferous spring” in Ouhai District is not only in the parks, but also can be seen everywhere on the roadsides. Citizens can enjoy various flowers along the way with a “checklist”.

Driving through the Wen-Qu Highway and the Ouhai Avenue, citizens will find purple magnolias and white magnolias peacefully blooming in the median strips. As a typical hysteranthous plant (the flowers appear before the leaves), magnolia blossoms, whose petals are graceful, soft, shinny, pure, and tranquil, need no green leaves to embellish them.

The best places for appreciating purple-leaf plums are the Yongqing Street, the Huimin Road and the Bantang Street, where the flowers at the end of their blooming period are thinly scattered in median strips. If you miss it, you have to wait another year.

Going for an outing in the countryside and strolling through peach gardens deeply touch everyone’s heart. More than 260 peach trees are in full bloom at the Xiuyu Park in Ouhai, where Early Red, Versicolor, Juicy, Atropurpurea, Camelliaeflora, and other varieties of peaches were planted. “A pretty face outshone the flowers of peach trees … Only the pretty flowers still smile in vernal breeze” — as the two lines from a famous Chinese poem say, what bloom in the spring breeze are not only the charming peach blossoms, but also the longings for better lives.

According to the “Flower Appreciation Guide”, citizens can also go to the Jiushan Park to admire camellias whose huge flowers set off by dark green glossy leaves are dignified and akin to the texture of oil paintings. The cherry blossoms in the Yangfu Mountain Park will flower in early April. Their petals, falling like snow, will provide you a romantic encounter with spring. In a few months, rhododendrons in the Xiushan Park will also be in full bloom. Various flowers are blooming one after another with spring bursting everywhere.