Beijing, July 25 (Xinhua) — Garden villages are one of the eight types of garden scenes that the "Beijing Garden City Special Plan (2023-2035)" specifies as key priorities for building a garden city. Reporters learned from the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau that the Office of the Capital Greening Committee has carried out pilot garden village construction in Lijiachang Village and Banbidian Village in Weishanzhuang Town, Daxing District, and in Dongfangezhuang Village and Xiying Village in Yukou Town, Pinggu District. The ecological renovation of the four villages in the two towns has now been preliminarily completed.

Li Tao, deputy director of the Voluntary Tree Planting Division of the Office of the Capital Greening Committee, introduced that building garden villages requires adapting to local conditions and scientific design. The city has now compiled and issued the "Guidelines for Beijing Garden Village Construction (Trial)," which, based on the two scales of town and village, specifies the concrete requirements and standards for garden village construction from six aspects: rural green foundation, resource quality, tree-shaded floral scenery, nostalgic characteristics, ecological benefits for the people, and landscape sustainability. It has formed nine types of garden village construction models, including "park plazas" and "main streets and alleys," and recommends major greening tree species and landscape plants, providing evaluation standards, goal orientation, and construction guidance for the high-quality development of greening and beautification in Beijing's countryside.

A pilot garden village after ecological renovation. Photo provided by the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau.

The Office of the Capital Greening Committee selected Lijiachang Village and Banbidian Village in Weishanzhuang Town, Daxing District, and Dongfangezhuang Village and Xiying Village in Yukou Town, Pinggu District — villages with a relatively good greening and beautification foundation and prominent characteristic forestry industries — for pilot garden village construction. Unlike the previous practice of the government hiring teams to carry out construction, the pilot villages fully mobilized local villagers to contribute ideas and plant trees and flowers together. With the ecological renovation of the four villages in the two towns preliminarily completed, villagers now enjoy a life where "greenery is visible from the window and parks are at the doorstep."

Lijiachang Village in Weishanzhuang Town, Daxing District, covers an area of 1,495 mu and has a registered population of more than 300 people in about 90 households. The village has developed industries of premium vegetables and fruits such as mushrooms, strawberries, dragon fruit, and peppers, and its public spaces are distinctive with a good greening foundation. In this garden village renovation, Lijiachang Village mobilized villagers to participate in the entire process of greening and beautification design for public areas, and by delivering seedlings and flower stands to villagers' courtyards, it inspired villagers' enthusiasm to build beautiful courtyards on their own.

In addition to the village's public areas, the designers also selected six villager residential courtyards for renovation, creating garden-style courtyard scenes of green courtyards, practical courtyards, and happy courtyards. It is reported that, based on the different needs of courtyard users and the current greening conditions of the courtyards, the six courtyards in Lijiachang Village were respectively renovated into six models: beautiful fruit and vegetable gardens, courtyard flower display gardens, flower and fruit-vegetable gardens, homestay small gardens, practical small courtyards, and three-dimensional small gardens.

Li Tao stated that during the renovation, experts from the Chinese Academy of Forestry and professional design companies were specially invited to visit the four villages in the two towns multiple times for on-site communication and guidance on greening and beautification plans. At the same time, the Party branch of the Voluntary Tree Planting Division of the Office of the Capital Greening Committee and the Party committee of Yukou Town, Pinggu District, conducted multiple in-depth studies on issues such as severe hardening within villages, insufficient greening and beautification, and insufficient development of green industries, and provided policy and funding support and deepened exchanges and cooperation to create demonstration models of garden villages.

A pilot garden village after ecological renovation. Photo provided by the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau.

The Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau has also formulated the "Several Measures of the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau on Supporting the Creation of the First Batch of Rural Revitalization Demonstration Villages," mainly supporting all districts in integrating the creation of "Hundreds and Thousands Project" demonstration villages with garden village construction from four aspects: building garden-style characteristic demonstration towns, improving the overall environmental appearance of villages, developing characteristic forestry industries, and strengthening funding support.