Four decades of tending to Chinese roses, and he still has a lot to learn

Thousands of Chinese roses are blooming at the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing, in breathtaking shades of yellow and white. And there are more than 200 varieties of roses, most of them from abroad.

Two varieties of roses, one pinkwhite and the other mixed orange, stand out.

They were cultivated decades ago for the first time by Li Wenkai, a 63-year-old horticulturist at the park.

For him, it’s been a long road to mastering the art of growing Chinese roses.

The Chinese rose is a special flower variety that blossoms during two seasons in the year, usually from May to October, blossoming for around 200 days a season.

But under some circumstances, the blossoming of the flowers is linked to major events held in Beijing.

Now, Li has mastered the art of controlling the blooming of Chinese roses to make their blossoms last longer.

Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, Li spent three years researching the exact day that the Chinese roses would bloom. But due to high temperatures, it is hard for the roses to remain in full bloom in the summer and the flowers often get dry and scorched.

“So, I started to trim their branches two days earlier to adjust their flowering season,” he says. “Fortunately, the roses that are in full bloom in summer are not inferior to those that bloom in autumn, which is in the normal time for them to blossom.”

In August, a week before the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese roses burst into bloom around the Tian’ anmen Square.

To cultivate a new type of Chinese rose is not easy, says Li, adding that he spends at least five years on each variety.

“And more often than not, you are alone in exploring the secrets of maintaining the flowers,” he says.

Li, who graduated in 1975 from college, has worked in the Temple of Heaven for the past 40 years. And he treats the Chinese roses as

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“Resisting the cold and the drought and to flower is hard for the roses,” he says.

“They are quite picky about temperature, humidity, fertilizers and watering, which requires precise control,” Li adds.

Despite retiring in 2015, the 63-year-old is still in business and ready to give everything he has mastered to the next generation.

“As for Chinese roses, I only know 60 percent about them,” he says. “So, I hope my apprentices can do more in this field.”