Heze returns as spring tourist mecca for prized peonies

April is the best time for people to appreciate the peony, which is widely acclaimed as the noblest of Chinese flowers.

With a long history of cultivation, Heze in East China's Shandong province, is the country's major peony base with more than 1,200 varieties growing in the city.

A major place in the city to appreciate peony is the Caozhou Flower Garden, which is located in the Mudan district of Heze. Over 500 peonies in the garden are more than 100 years old.

The most appealing, however, is the variety that is more than 400 years old and can bear hundreds of pink flowers every year. The peony was planted in 1610, making it the oldest flower in China, according to the Heze tourism information center.

Every April, tourists, painters, and photographers crowd the garden to appreciate the blooming peony flowers.

The annual International Peony Cultural Tourism Festival, which is usually held in April in Heze, has become an important platform to promote the city and increase its international profile.

With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's festival began on April 8 via online channels and will run through May 31.

The event features a series of livestreaming activities on peony blooming, peony appreciation, and peony-themed hot events and makes use of virtual reality and 5G technologies, creating a grand online exhibition that fully exposes the city's peony culture.

Heze, dubbed the "Peony Capital of China", currently has a peony planting area of about 400,000 mu (26,666.67 hectares).

The new varieties cultivated in the city account for 80 percent of the domestic total. It has exported more than 2 million peony seedlings, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the country's total.

The peony business in Heze has evolved from sightseeing to manufacturing a variety of high-value peony-related products, such as seed oil, tea, cosmetics, and healthy food, after several years of industrial chain expansion and cultivation.

The city has placed great importance on the preservation and development of current peony planting and cultivation techniques. Heze peonies now come in nine types of colors and 1,259 cultivars.

Heze has developed a potted peony that is more suited for home decoration and care. It has also introduced a new peony variety called "fresh-cut flower" for the contemporary floral arrangement market.