When Wang Xiancheng resigned from his government post in 1510 due to his persecution by the Ming Imperial Secret Service he spent the next 16 years building this garden which he named "the Humble Administrator's Garden" as an ironic reference to that being all he could now administer, and also to a famous poem, thereby indicating his retirement from political life. It is now the most famous of all the Suzhou gardens. It abuts onto the Suzhou museum and is on all the coach tours. It was thronged with chinese coach parties and in some places it was difficult to move but in fact it is the low season, the hiigh season starts on April 16th when there is more blossom and peonies out and lasts through to October. Heaven knows how crowded it could get then.
Like all the private gardens there are a series of pavilions with specific functions, greeting guests, a study, writing, contemplating a particular created landscape. Really these kiosk constitue the home in which he would live. The gardens themselves always contain propitiously proportioned rocks, a table supporting a miniature moutnain scene, a lake, various idealised artificial mini landscapes which can be viewed from kiosks or framed through windows and, usually, a collection of bonsai. Unusually this garden also has some mass bedding displays with the plants in pots.
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