I grew up in a city on the north bank of the great river, where the gardens are very famous ... Some people who love flowers just plant them in pots and put them on shelves. The shelf is opposite the yard. As usual, the yard is not big, just enough to put down a shelf; There are no more than twenty pots of flowers on the shelf at most. Sometimes a "flower bed" is built against the wall in the yard. A flowering tree is planted on the flower bed, and some are planted on the ground in the yard. But this is just an ordinary ornament, not a love flower.
Mr. Zhu Ziqing is a native of Yangzhou, and he is very familiar with the local customs of his hometown. In Yangzhou people's small courtyard, as Mr. Zhu described, a flower stand is often built and dozens of pots of flowers and trees are raised. It should be said that there must be a flower-loving owner in this yard, but Mr. Zhu said, "This is just an ordinary decoration, not a flower-loving person."
What does Yangzhou really love flowers? The one who really loves flowers is probably Mr. Jingzhai, the "Guangling East Erli Fire" in Zheng Banqiao's Mei Zhuang Ji. Mr. Jing Zhai likes Mei, "and Mei is the most cordial, and robots repair it;" The sleeper helps it; Those who lack it make up for it; Not only that, when the frost is cold and the ice is snowy, Mei Chi "lingers under it, frequently urging you to miss it, and lying down if you can't bear it." "When the outdoor wind signals flooded and lightning flashed, he" put on his clothes, raised the lamp to the sky and looked around, depending on Mei's safety. "Mr. Jingzhai loves Mei, loves Mei, and has long regarded Mei as a friend. He loves Mei like a child and is inseparable from each other. This may be the lover in Zhu's mind.
Of course, Mr. Jingzhai in Zheng Banqiao is still a minority after all, but Yangzhou people regard planting flowers and trees as a pleasing thing, but nine times out of ten, almost every family does.
As early as Yuan Jia, Emperor Wen of the Southern Song Dynasty, Xu Zhanzhi was the secretariat of South Yanzhou in Guangling. He planted flowers and trees widely in the garden he built, and it was a scene of "the fruits and bamboos are flourishing and the flowers and trees are in rows". By the Tang Dynasty, under the pen of the poet Yao He, Yangzhou was already a place where gardens were mostly houses. In a garden-like house, Yangzhou people at that time must be lush with flowers and trees. The prosperity of Yangzhou in Qing dynasty made Yangzhou people pay more attention to the living environment and quality of life, and planting flowers and trees became an important part of residential layout. "Planting flowers for fields in ten miles" and "planting bamboo everywhere and raising geese everywhere" became the life interest advocated and pursued by Yangzhou people at that time.
In the past, large families in Yangzhou had gardens, and later, they also had greenhouses. These gardens and greenhouses are full of flowers all year round. According to Li Dou's "The Original Ship of Yangzhou", there were flower beds in Meihualing, Banghua Village, Baocheng, Maoshan, Tang Lei and other places in the northern suburbs of Yangzhou at that time. The flower beds were planted by households and connected by shade. The second book says:
The garden pavilions on the lake all have gardens, which are places for flowers. ..... The gardener called the gardener to raise bonsai and plant dwarf pine, dwarf cedar, cypress and plum willow. Pittosporum, boxwood and tiger thorn are the smallest and most. Flowers are the most beautiful. Baked peony in greenhouse in winter. The first month is the garden pavilion.
Li Dou's narrative is concise and to the point. In fact, in the old days, gardeners in the garden put carefully cultivated flowers of the four seasons in flowerpots every morning and sent them to the flower stands in the living room, study and yard of the host family in the city, so that flowers are always in full bloom and fragrant all year round, both inside and outside the host family's residence. Fuchun Tea House is a famous tea house in Yangzhou. There is a garden on Yanfu Road. The four seasons flowers in Fuchun Garden are delivered to the owner's residence of Desheng Bridge by the gardener on time every morning. The owner's residence is also called Fuchun Flower Bureau. Today's Fuchun Teahouse is developed on the basis of Fuchun Flower Bureau.
Potted flowers are planted in pottery pots, which are permeable and breathable, which is beneficial to the growth of flowers and trees, but it is not very elegant for indoor furnishings. Therefore, Yangzhou people have many excellent porcelain pots and teapot, which are specially used to put pottery pots. Those porcelain pots are blue and white pastels, those teapot are black mud and red robes, and so on. What pots match what flowers are exquisite, and gardeners will match them reasonably according to their owners' preferences, such as orchids in red robes, which set off dense blue leaves like clouds; Begonia with celadon, dark red petals bright but not demon. Yangzhou people put flowers in the living room and study. These special cases, called "Ji Hua", are mostly made of mahogany and rosewood, which is a delicate handicraft in itself. A few flowers are high and low, shoulder-to-knee There is something lower, which is placed on the coffee table of the desk, and that is the "socket". Flowers, flowerpots and flowers complement each other, showing the owner's interest and elegance.
Of course, there are gardeners who send flowers to your door, not ordinary families. But ordinary people also have their own unique pleasure in enjoying flowers. Conditional, build a flower bed in the courtyard, with short walls around it, or make a circular or arc, square or angular geometric figure with small tiles and prosperous bricks, which looks like a flower window of a big family. There is no place to build a platform, so someone builds it under the window. The flower stand looks like a ladder, and the flower pots are placed layer by layer. It covers a small area, but it is patchwork and ingenious. There is not much soil in the flower bed, but it is very fertile. Not many flowers and trees are planted, and they are not too expensive. Common ones are Begonia, Hosta, Fireworks Red, Impatiens, Tianzhu, Chrysanthemum and Chimonanthus praecox. But under the care of their owners, these four-season flowers and trees are more lush than those famous flowers without the care of their owners. In fact, ordinary people like flowers better than extended families. The flower appreciation of a large family is well raised by the gardener, and the flower appreciation people have no idea about the ups and downs of flowers and trees and the changes of seasons. Ordinary people do it themselves. Although there is dirt and pruning, the appreciation after work is more intimate and pleasing to the eye.
Yangzhou people like to enjoy flowers in the atrium and courtyard at home, especially in the countryside. Yangzhou people have always had the custom of enjoying flowers in the suburbs. "Yangzhou Painting Boat Record" has been published for eleven years: "Painting boats have cities and meetings, and spring is plum blossom and peach blossom; Summer is the three cities of peony, peony and lotus; Autumn is the second city of osmanthus hibiscus. "In fact, there is a chrysanthemum city in autumn and a wintersweet city in winter. Li Dou may have missed it. Yangzhou people go to the suburbs to enjoy flowers, and there are two kinds of flowers that are most concerned, peony and Qionghua.
Peony and Qionghua were famous as early as the Song Dynasty. When Ouyang Xiu was an official in Yangzhou, Zeng Jianting wrote a poem:
Qionghua Peony has nothing to do with the world. I sometimes complain about not writing poems.
I was drunk in Wushuangting, and I knew that Guangling Spring was not my responsibility.
As for the peony in Yangzhou, there was a saying that "Luoyang Peony, Yangzhou Peony". When Cai Jing was the magistrate in Yangzhou, he picked more than 100,000 peony flowers and held a "Flower Show" every year when the peony was in bloom. It can be seen that Yangzhou peony is flourishing. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, Liu Ban, Wang Guan and Kong Wuzhong all wrote the Peony Spectrum for Yangzhou Peony.
The earliest record of Qionghua in Yangzhou can be found in two Qionghua poems written by Wang Yucheng in the Northern Song Dynasty. The preface to the poem says, "There is a flower in Houtu Temple in Yangzhou, which is white and lovely. Its tree is big and flowery. I don't know what kind of wood it is. Called Qionghua. " Since then, the Qionghua in Yangzhou, as a rare and famous flower unique to Yangzhou, has attracted scholars of all ages. In addition to leaving a lot of poems, these literati also took notes, such as Du You's Qionghua Ji in Song Dynasty, Zhang Chang's Qionghua Fu, Zheng Xingyi's Qionghua Bian, Yang Duan's Qionghua Pu in Ming Dynasty and Yu Quyuan's Qionghua in Qing Dynasty. In 1980s, Qionghua was designated as the flower of Yangzhou. Recently, Qionghuaguan has resumed. It has become a great pleasure for Yangzhou people to enjoy Qionghua in March.
Yangzhou people love flowers and bonsai. According to legend, Yangzhou bonsai began in the Tang Dynasty. After thousands of years of development and evolution, it has become one of the five major schools in China, and is called "Yangpai bonsai" by the world. The artistic features of Yangpai bonsai are embodied in the "cloud-shaped" stump bonsai. This bonsai has been cultivated since childhood, carefully tied and finely carved, with winding trunk and distinct branches and leaves. It shows steady and smooth workmanship in "one inch and three bends" and exquisite ingenuity in "the tree is not straight", which is especially suitable for interior decoration and courtyard decoration.
Since 1980s, Yangzhou has held a flower market every autumn 10, and dozens of nurseries compete to show their exotic flowers and herbs. The flower market lasted for several days, and the crowds surged every day. Flower lovers often get together in groups of three or five to exchange their experiences in cultivating flowers, which is called "Reading Flower Classics" and has become a new scene for modern Yangzhou people to enjoy flowers.
People in Yangzhou appreciate flowers not only by their colors, but also by their fragrance. Especially the fragrant flowers that are easy to wear and carry, Yangzhou people especially like them. As a result, there are people selling fragrant flowers in Yangzhou. Zhu Ziqing wrote in "Looking at Flowers":
In the summer morning, we have a girl from the countryside, shouting "selling gardenias" at the door. Gardenia is not a high-quality product, but I like the white yellow color and the fat figure, which are similar to those girls who sell flowers. The fragrance of gardenia, strong but not strong, clear but not light, is also my pleasure. That's how I love flowers.
By Zhu Ziqing's Gardenia, Yangzhou people will naturally think of the same kind of pearl orchids and jasmine flowers, and they will also think of Yangzhou folk song What a Jasmine Flower, which Yangzhou people feel very cordial:
What a beautiful jasmine,
What a beautiful jasmine,
The flowers in the garden are not as fragrant as it is.
I like a dress,
The flower watcher will scold me.
Folk songs express the yearning of men and women by picking jasmine flowers. This is also a different kind of flower viewing for Yangzhou people, right?