Breezes in spring,
Flowers in summer,
Moon in autumn,
Snow in winter.

From this old Chinese jingle, we can see that of four seasons, plants are only important in the summer in a perfect Chinese garden. Compared with the extraordinary number of the architecture and man-made mountain, plants indeed don’t seem to be given any special prominence in the making of a private Chinese garden. Everything in a Chinese garden seems to have an inner meaning, including the plants. The willow represents grace, for its tender and slender branches. It is usually planted lakeside to “dance” rhythmically as the young girls along the wind from the surface of the lake. The bamboo tree, with its tall and slender stalks and its long and narrow leaves, symbolizes fidelity, humility, wisdom, and gentleness. The pine tree symbolizes the robustness, dignity, and majesty of a wise old man. The chrysanthemum symbolizes such things as gentility, good friendship, and longevity. Lawn is used least in the private Chinese garden, for its beauty is best perceived with inexhaustible sight ranges, and contradicts the private Chinese garden design principle of avoiding total exposure of everything at a glance. Therefore, lawns are well planted in the large tracts of lands in an American park, not in the stringent area of the private Chinese garden.

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