Garden landscape of Binjiang Property’s real estate, The One with particular, has impressed many visiting groups. In The One, there are carpets of green grass, luxuriant woods, and blooming flowers in four seasons such as azalea, Malus robusta Rehd., camellia, and so on.

Today, we are going to get close to the life and work of a landscape architect and learn how the garden landscape of The One, a high-end property in the downtown of Hangzhou, is created.

In service center of The One, there is an outstanding landscape architect named Guo Changliang and respectfully called Teacher Guo, who has been working on garden greening for 25 years and was a teacher of Hangzhou Polytechnic before he came to the service center of Binjiang Property’s The One in 2018.

For Guo, maybe coming to The One is about the role transition from a teacher to a gardener as well as about the integration of theoretical education with practical application.

Sweat and Hard Work behind a Meipian Post

On a day in late July, Guo uploaded a Meipian post about them renewing lawns in The One in hot weather. This post tells the painstakingness behind a beautiful garden. But from another perspective, it is quite a challenge to renew lawns in hot weather considering the risk of low survival rate.

Generally, lawn renewal work should be done in March or April. Influenced by the pandemic and a long rainy season this year, the best time for lawn renewal has been missed.

Seeing the withered lawns were below the quality standard and not in harmony with the surroundings, the service center of The One decided to replace lawns in hot days, which is generally considered a difficult time for this activity. Guo told that they still had confidence to complete such a challenge despite the pressure.

The greening area of The One is divided into four sectors. Now they are working on the lawn renewal of sector A, which covers an area of 1800m2 alone. Clearly, the task is not nearly easy.

Turfing, A Skilled Task

At about 8:00pm on July 25th, a truck carrying turfs of 500m2 arrived at sector A of The One, implying the start of the hard work of gardeners.

Before renewal, the lawn cleaning is necessary. Gardeners cleared and removed lawn garbage out of the residential quarter early, and again got into the swing of their work when the truck of turfs arrived at night. They had to separate turfs one by one to prevent the influence of long-time heaping on growth of grass.

During lawn renewal, a day’s work of a gardener starts from 6:00am and lasts till 5:00pm with a short lunch break from 11:00am to 12:30pm.

According to Guo, gardeners must pay very close attention to the lawn during the turfing period of around 10 days. Turfing is a skilled task that should be completed as per trimming specifications and standards of laying in echelon, flattening with rollers, and watering until sated. All links of this work must be carried out under the high standard to ensure the best result as any improper operation may affect the survival of grass.

Laying turfs in echelon is for the purpose of quick and orderly work and helps improve the efficiency. Then, rollers weighing about 150kg each were used to flatten the lawn to give a tidy and artistical visual effect.

Gardeners are dripping with perspiration in such hot weather. Their sweat drips into the soil and disappears among grass. “That’s how we gardeners are responsible for our work,” said Guo.

Secret of Watering

Guo emphasized that water is the source of lives and that watering is a key work to a new lawn. He keeps a close eye on watering work and demonstrates the proper watering way to other gardeners. For example, a lawn on a slope must be watered from the high, and a flat lawn must be watered carefully to avoid any omission.

Regardless of the landform, new lawns must be watered until the soil 3-10cm under the ground is soaked. A gardener may check with a stick 4-5 days after watering to see if there are grass roots, which indicate the survival of the lawn.

Guo also shared many other secrets of watering. For example, in hot days, a new lawn must be watered three or four times a day during the first 10-day period to ensure sufficient water for grass; the watering frequency may be reduced day by day to avoid root rot. Besides, the standard of watering is to keep every drop of water remaining in the lawn.

Create Visual Aesthetics of Garden

The garden of The One integrates both the European royal garden style and the semi-tropical style. Guo’s garden planting team attaches great importance to the aesthetic effect of each cluster both from an aerial view and at eye level to ensure that people can enjoy the beauty from any angle.

As to a block not suitable for a lawn, they will adjust with nursery stocks and, on the basis of integration of the design technique and the overall style, add sago cycas clusters and volcanic rocks to form an interesting micro-landscape.

With the belief, the sense of responsibility, and the expectation of beauty, the landscape architect as well as garden guard devotes himself to creating a pleasing environment with luxuriant vegetation and fragrant flowers for proprietors.