The Ecological Analysis Of Plant Arrangement Relating To The Classical Gardens In The Southern China

The Classical gardens in the southern china are the treasure in the whole world,are the inheritance of the whole mankind civilization,and are the art treasure of our chinese race as well.Natural standpoint-"the consociation of nature and people" is the guidance of classical gardens in the southern china.Using traditional techniques such as condensing nature,mimicking mountain and water,It created an artificial environment matching the ecological regulation.Planting design and plant arrangement in classical gardens have its own distinct and unique traits,not only in beautifing landscape,but also in improving environment.Nowadays,the mankind face the serious existence environment crisis,the plant has the non-replace fuction in improving the city environment,is also the corpus of ecological environment.Following the ecology principles,taking the plant as the corpus,developing the various functions of the garden,combining ecological benefits and social,economic as well,and creating ecological gardens having uniform and stable structure,are the new trend of the park construction development.The plant species composition of classical garden in Suzhou,Yangzhou,Shanghai is studied in the paper using the traditionally investigation method of vegetation ecology and ecological theories.Author analyzes the species composition and the coupling relation of the species,the plant growth condition,and a systematical evaluation and discussion is done as well.Author thought that summarizing the characteristic of artificial plant community,exploring the ecological principles for species composition of our classical gardens would enrich the frame of ecological theories in landscape planting design,and can provide a guide for inheriting the excellent techniques of the planting design traditional garden and for constructing new type of ecological gardens.The research contents include:the ecological analysis of plant species composition for different sites, the analysis of tree species structures,and species dominant and growth index as well.The results showed as the follows:â‘ There are 3 major sites for planting:Planting area in construction square,Rockery, and surrounding water.The plant an'angement in small planting area of building square is mainly used for moderating microclimate.In genera,some long live tree species with larger canopy or flower trees with distinguished culture implication are selected.And planting arrangement base on species selection and niche analysis is designed carefully to establish stable and attractive community with color changing in seasons. In the site surrounding water,some wet tolerant species are used base on the planting space,for example big deciduous tree species are selected to be planted as backdrop along smaller water,and some shorter flower or evergreen trees are associated with.Because of its vertical layer structure creates a water visual view.The plants in water are the hydrophyte having the function of purify water and the highly appreciate value.When in rockery install,according to the characteristic of rockery and its niche conditions,the tree form and height and size for planting design should be considered for creating a harmony and balance landscape with rockery and other constructions.The small size trees are planted on the rockery halfway,that planted at the foot of the rockery are higher and bigger slightly but not as a block or screen for rockery view,which mainly have developed root,tolerant to dry and unfertile soil,and grow slowly and ling lifespan.â‘¡Although the classical gardens of the southem china are artificial and they are intransitively maintained and managed,but their structures of the existing communities, represents to a certain degree the interaction of the trees and its adaptation to the exterior environment mutually,it also the result of the ecological selection in a long time of period. So their species composition is not absolutely arranged or formed in chance,but be constituted based on species niche feature and adaptation;on other hands,different height tree species are planted to create a community with multiple layers.Depending on the characteristics of dominant trees in community,through species association analyzing the semi-matrix chart of species association is drawn according to AC value to indicate if the pair of species has a positive relationship or negative, meanwhile to understand the structure and dynamic state for dominant species.â‘¢:Author thought that we need to learn and absorb the essence of the classical gardens vividly,to follow bio-diversity principle,imitate the nature,select tree species according to not only its visual characters but also its ecological niche feature,and adjust the plant species composition depending on species association,repair the weak trees,introduce biological control for pest problem,guide the garden construction using ecological improvement concepts.This paper is just a primary study,because of Chinese classical garden has own so rich and abundant contents so more researches are need to be done in future,such as on plant arrangement and its spatial pattern,to look for a method that can be used to evaluate ecological benefits for the different species compositions scientifically,to realize the under controlling and foresight for plant community development.