Meiyuan Plum Garden

Meiyuan, the Plum Garden, lies on Hengshan hill in Liangxi District, Wuxi, Jiangsu province, on the western edge of the city near Taihu Lake. It was founded in 1912 by the Rong family, the brothers Rong Zongjing and Rong Desheng, industrialists whose flour mills and textile mills shaped modern Wuxi and made it a leading centre of Chinese private industry in the early 20th century. The garden grew over several decades from an initial plum orchard into a landscaped hillside park, and it is among the best-known gardens built by Chinese entrepreneurs of the Republican era. Its signature feature is the plum collection, with thousands of trees of many varieties blossoming from late winter, which draws crowds each February and March. Alongside the orchards, the garden preserves pavilions, a hill-top viewing terrace, a stone memorial arch, a small lake and buildings associated with the Rong family, including a memorial hall and a study with calligraphy by modern scholars. The layout blends Jiangnan garden elements such as stone paths, rockeries and pavilions with the open planting of an orchard, giving a very different character from the older Ming scholar gardens of Huishan. After 1949 the garden was nationalised and opened to the public, and later restoration repaired the pavilions and replanted trees. The site documents the role of the Rong family in the city's development, and a visit combines flowers, hill views toward Taihu Lake, and a sense of the Republican-era industrial elite that built modern Wuxi.