Tiger Hill Penjing Garden, Suzhou

Tiger Hill Penjing Garden is the best ‘bonsai garden’ I have seen to date and I have seen a few places in Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Before saying anything about the garden one must appreciate that Tiger Hill and Suzhou are steeped in ancient history and culture. Historic references to it go back to ‘Spring and Autumn’ period (771-476 BC). For thousands of years Suzhou remained an important cultural centre, it became the “city of gardens” and the home of Suzhou school of penjing. Images below show some of the Tiger Hill surrounds.

All elements of Tiger Hill Penjing Garden form a cohesive whole. Buildings, walls, walkways and hundreds of penjing trees are all in harmony with each other. See it for yourself in the images below.

Most penjing trees were of a high standard, however it was very difficult to photograph them because they invariably had a busy backdrop behind them. Elms (Ulmus pumila, U. parvifolia) and Chinese Sweet Plum (Sageretia theezans) constituted the majority of deciduous trees in the garden. Images below will give you a representative sample.

A handful of broad-leaved trees had leaves on them and they are shown below. The one in the middle is Japanese Box (Buxus harlandii).

As for the conifers, junipers were almost exclusively Juniperus formosana and J. chinensis. All J. formosana trees had brownish foliage (see images below). Some of the trees were quite large. The image marked with asterisk shows a two-meter-tall tree.

Images below show some of the pines, which mostly were White Pine (Pinus parviflora) and Black Pine (Pinus thunbergii).

There was also a number of very high standard rock penjing shown in the images below.

Every moment in Tiger Hill Penjing Garden was simply precious.