IF you walk along Shanghai’s North Bund these days, you will hardly miss those “islets” of luxuriant plants that seem to have emerged overnight from the sloping lawns and wedge-shaped street corners, giving the Huangpu River a rare sense of rustic wilderness.

These plants, so arranged as to form various small landscapes along the river, amount to no less than miniature habitat gardens humming with wildlife, adding color and vigor to the existing lawns and formerly underutilized streetside space.

“I’ve found butterflies many times in the past few days since these new plants were grown here,” a young security guard told me. “I hadn’t seen them so frequently before.”

It was on October 25 when the young guard and I struck up a casual conversation. He came from the countryside in northwest China’s Gansu Province and knew more about why certain insects like butterflies need various host plants than I did.

“Not all trees attract butterflies, and a monoculture lawn is especially unattractive,” he explained.

The various new plants were grown on October 22 by 38 groups of designers from Shanghai and the nearby provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui, who were attending the first urban landscape competition across the Yangtze River Delta region. Within four hours that day, each participating team planted a 40-square-meter landscape.

Official reports have confirmed that all the new landscapes will be on display until Saturday and many well-designed ones will remain after the event and become part of the reinvigorated riverside green space.

My wrong assumption

To be sure, I rarely went to the urban heartland before, assuming that “grass is always greener” in the countryside. I went to the North Bund only because I had just learned that the public was welcome to participate in an online vote on the 38 new landscapes until October 31. I hoped to have a close, onsite look before casting a vote for my favorite entries.

I knew nothing could be further from the truth than my previous assumption the moment I arrived at the scene. The 38 miniature landscapes were vying for my attention with a nice display of different plants, many of which I couldn’t recognize at all, except with the help of nearby posts with explanations, my mobile app specializing in plant identification, a botany teacher I chanced upon on the spot, and the above-mentioned young security guard.

The young guard took the initiative to talk to me after he noticed I had been shifting between different miniature landscapes, sometimes kneeling on the ground, to try to find what I thought to be a perfect angle from which I could record an image of high-rise buildings across the Huangpu River “rising” from behind the diverse plants that had newly grown from the flat lawns.

After sharing with me his joy of having found butterflies in just three days, he introduced me to a miniature landscape featuring blossoming wild lily flowers that attract bees, butterflies and even moths, and another one featuring mums of different colors, which attract ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, bees and dragonflies.

In the end, he said to me: “If you want to take good photos, go and zero in on that one designed by landscapers from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.”

He was right. The photo of riverside high-rises rising from behind the miniature landscape designed by Hangzhou gardeners turned out to be the most satisfactory among those I had taken with similar backgrounds that day. I showed my photo to the guard and he gave me a high five.

Then I went down the slope to appreciate Hangzhou’s landscape from the front side. From a post with explanatory words placed among the plants, I realized this 40-square-meter mini habitat garden mainly uses ornamental grass and perennial root plants with red and orange colors. They are arranged to mimic spreading water ripples which eventually crystallize into “bright pearls” in homage to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower across the Huangpu River.

Hangzhou’s landscape won the first prize from professional judges on October 22. As a layman interested in plant diversity and urban landscaping, I also voted for it as one of my favorite entries at the competition.

Hangzhou’s miniature landscape not just impressed me with its idyllic beauty, but also acquainted me with the names of certain plants used here. As I read the information post, I came to know such plant names as Rosa chinesis (Butterfly rose or China rose), Salvia greggii (cherry sage), Asclepias curassavica (blood-flower milkweed), Echinacea purpurea (eastern purple coneflower), Kniphofia uvaria (torch lily), Dianella ensifolia (flax-lily) and Coreopsis (tickseed). These ornamental and perennial root plants are friendly to many insects like bees, butterflies and dragonflies.

I also voted for another miniature landscape lying at a narrow, wedge-shaped street corner along the river, where I luckily shot a video of a hummingbird hawk-moth sucking the nectar of Dianthus chinensis (Rainbow pink) flowers with its giant mouthpart. From a distance, the fast-flying insect looks a bit like a bee or a hummingbird, but on closer examination it’s a far cry from both.

Plant diversity matters

My onsite observation of the newly cultivated miniature landscapes on the North Bund reminds me of Shanghai’s steady efforts to enhance its plant diversity over the past few years.

Xinmin Evening News reported earlier this month that researchers from the Shanghai Academy of Landscape Architecture Science and Planning had spent three years studying how to enhance the charm of wilderness of the city’s parks by cultivating more native plants in their green space.

Native plants generally refer to those which have evolved or adapted to a local environment or ecosystem for hundreds or thousands of years.

A senior researcher from the academy told Xinmin Evening News that Shanghai’s lawns were relatively monotonous in terms of plant diversity and could hardly support insects’ need for habitats. Moreover, grass lawns required constant maintenance, as gardeners would uproot any wild grass that came to their notice. Such over-maintenance would incur labor costs, while doing no good to the environment.

Xinmin Evening News further learned that researchers from the academy had selected 69 kinds of native plants suitable for local environment, which could replace grass in certain areas. As a result, parks would be able to lower the cost of maintenance while increasing their wild charm.

As I discovered through my recent field studies, the North Bund is not the only place in the city to embrace more diverse plants. In the 2,000-square-meter Habitat Garden – East Bund, which was formally established and open to public this April, designers have introduced much more native plants than previously existing ones.

A wonderland of plants

When I visited the Habitat Garden — East Bund on October 18, I was amazed to discover two kinds of native plants — perennial buckwheat (Fagopyrum cymosum) and skunkvine (Paederia foetida). I first learned about them when I spent a weeklong holiday on Wuyi Mountain in Fujian Province earlier in October, during which a local expert on Chinese herbs taught me how to identify different plants.

I was so impressed by the rich diversity of plants, including Chinese herbs, on Wuyi Mountain, that after I returned to Shanghai, I quietly asked myself: Is Shanghai a biological “desert” compared with Wuyi?

Certainly, you can’t compare a city with a mountainous region when it comes to plant diversity. But a few weeks’ field research in Shanghai, mainly along Metro stations on both sides of the Huangpu River, have made me realize how little I used to know about the city’s ever-increasing plant diversity, especially in the urban heartland accessible to everyone who likes to have a casual walk.

My field research also took me to the West Bund Nature Art Park, Shanghai’s 1,000th park that opened this June, and Chinese Garden that opened in 2010.

Just as an adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Let photos speak for themselves – how the city’s parks have become better habitat gardens for both man and wildlife.

Just bear in mind that you don’t have to go to a mountain to enjoy the benefits of plant diversity. If you are an enthusiastic waygoer, you may easily wander into a wonderland of diverse plants near your home or a Metro station in the city.

And, make sure you turn your casual walk in a habitat garden into a journey into the scientific world of wildlife. Each time you feel unsure about what others say or what you see on the surface, always double check with a reliable academic source.