Let Olympic flowers bloom
By Yang Jie
Chinadaily.com.cn Staff Writer
Updated: 2008-07-08 10:30
As many as 40 million flowers are scheduled to bloom during the Beijing Olympic Games, despite the hot and humid weather during the summer in the Chinese capital.
“August and September in Beijing is a tough season for flowers. The excessive heat and rain tend to shorten the blooming of the flowers and also make flower breeding a difficult job,” said Yao Shicai, a senior flower expert with the Beijing Research Institute of Landscape and Gardening (BRILG). “Besides, market demand in these two months is also a low period, so horticulturists don’t try to grow things in this season and leave the city flower-lean.”
During the Games, dozens of qualified local flower providers are ready to provide flowers of over 100 different species for the Olympic city.
Located about 20 minutes’ drive away from Olympic Green, BRILG is set to provide 880,000 fresh flowers as well as 400,000 backup flowers for the Games, with a contract value totaling around 2 million yuan.
All Olympic flowers are those commonly seen in Beijing, though they have gone through certain kinds of crossbreeding in order to bloom in summer, explained Yong Wei, director of the marketing division of BRILG.
It’s reported that most Olympics flowers are improved hybrids whose parent flowers include both local flowers and foreign flowers. Crossbreeding has made the flowers stronger so they can withstand the summer heat, bloom longer and be more resistant to possible diseases.
A butterfly perches on a lingleaf speedwell flower. Originating from China, the lingleaf speedwell is commonly found in blue or pink. It sells for 3.5 yuan per pot and is a perennial. [Yang Jie/Chinadaily.com.cn]
However, “most Olympic flowers are seasonal ones. They will die out after the Games,” said Yong, which sounds somewhat pathetic, yet relieves concerns about the possible environmental fallout of crossbred flowers.
“For the perennial ones, as they are locally-based and already part of local eco-system, they naturally will not threaten the local eco-system”, said Yong.
