China's first horticulture documentary gains attention

China's first such horticulture documentary, "The Signature of Flowers'' recently ran on CCTV-1 and CCTV-9 over May 1-5,and brought attention from gardening enthusiasts.

The five-episode documentary series revisits the historical chapters about some plants from China taken overseas a few centuries ago, as well as tracing the latest discoveries by top domestic botanists.

The production was shot over two years, with its crew traveling to 21 provinces and regions in China and nearly 20 cities in Britain, France, the United States, Japan and the Netherlands.

Focused on camellia, rhododendron, Chinese rose, chrysanthemum and peony in each episode, the series displays some scenarios not filmed by domestic television producers earlier.

Such shots include a 15--day filming of the flowering process of Xueta (snow tower), a variety of camellia which is famous in China; and an expedition team's trek to the highlands of the Tibet autonomous region for rare rhododendrons.

Huang Yinghao, the chief director of the series, says he first had the idea to produce the documentary in 2017, when a friend presented him American writer Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World''.

"Pollan had a fresh perspective on plants," says Huang, adding that the book taught him to adopt an unprecedented way to observe plants. "Flowers have been on Earth before humans. It's interesting to imagine how they think about us, who appeared on the planet much later."

With the question haunting him, Huang with his TV crew members met Zhou Xiaolin, a self-made horticulturist who has leased a valley covering 800,000 square meters to plant various species of flowers on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan province.

One night in a cabin inside Zhou's garden, Huang shaped the draft, planning to collect interesting stories about flowers that have bridged the East and West by tracing the plants' native areas in China and their presence in foreign lands.

From Paris to London, Huang interviewed some renowned European botanists and gardeners, including Roy Lancaster, vice-president of the Royal Horticultural Society, and Richard Deverell, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

When Huang was shooting an episode of the series in Europe, his colleague, Han Zhen, director of the second episode, was with his team in Karma Valley on the eastern slopes of Qomolangma, or Mount Everest, in 2018.

As the most expensive journey for the documentary, Han had 13 yaks transporting tents and supplies for the filming team of more than 10 members.

In nine days, they hiked nearly 120 kilometers in the valley, climbing several peaks every day, with the highest altitude reaching around 5,300 meters.

The "Signature of Flowers'' marks Han's first attempt at directing a documentary on plants, and it has changed his view of the world.

"Gardening is a way to understand time. You have to slow down to taste the beauty of life and nature," he said.