National Wetland Park Xiangyang Fanshengguan Changshou Island Amazes with Thousands of Acres of Peonies
National Wetland Park Xiangyang Fanshengguan Changshou Island Amazes with Thousands of Acres of Peonies
‘The most beautiful April days in the world, don’t lose the precious time.’ In the beautiful April, with fresh air and abundant flowers, there are over a thousand acres of peonies in Changshou Island, Fangcheng District, Xiangyang City, Hubei Province. This week is the time when peonies are in full bloom and competing for beauty.
On April 6th, citizen Ms. Fang and her friend went to Fanshengguan Island for a picnic. When they just reached the village entrance, they were shocked by the sight before them. There were large areas of peonies blooming brilliantly and releasing a fragrant aroma. She said, ‘It’s like a sea of flowers, and it’s not just white, there are pink and purple, giving people a feeling of being as brilliant as dawn.’
Changshou Island is located in Niushu Town, Fangcheng District, with a distance of only 18 kilometers from the city center. Now it is the dry season, and you can drive directly to the island from Xiangcheng Wulong Town. Changshou Island has a variety of typical wetland landscapes and was approved as a National Wetland Park by the State Forest Administration in 2012. The village cadres said that after becoming a national wetland park, the island has increased its environmental remediation and investment attraction, and six years ago, a company transferred more than a thousand acres of land in the village, all planted with oil-bearing peonies.
Village Secretary Ma Changfu introduced: ‘There are 1100 acres of peonies, which can be used for making oil, increasing the village’s output, and farmers’ income.’
It is reported that oil-bearing peonies are adaptable, have a long lifespan, and, in addition to peony seeds being used for oil extraction, they also have high ornamental value. After several years of cultivation, this thousand acres of oil-bearing peonies have reached their peak flowering period this year, and local resident Wang Congjun even wrote a poem about this flower sea.
‘If a cotton boat drifts in the rosy dawn, dazzling and swaying, ten thousand acres of flowers. Brilliant to start a magnificent spectacle, fragrant and like a heaven’s abode.’
However, Mr. Wang and some passersby regretted that although this flower sea is magnificent, not many people came to admire it.
The village cadres said that initially planting these oil-bearing peonies was only considered for oil extraction, and now that it has become a flower sea, it can also be used as a scenic spot for citizens and tourists to visit and enjoy.
