The growingly appealing Sea & Sky (Haitian) Park, which opened in urban Xiangzhou District during the May Day holiday, will soon also have a botanical greenhouse, waterfalls, and sightseeing bridges.

The park consists of a former unsightly tract of 900 sq m (1,076 sq yd) between the 5th Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University on Meihua Road and Zhuhai Museum & Urban Planning Exhibition Hall on Central Lovers Avenue.

The entrance north of the Exhibition Hall will be where the botanical garden displays succulent and desert plants such as old man cactus (cephalocereus senilis) provided by Agricultural Paradise. It will have a glass façade and exhibits of colorful rocks to simulate a natural desert habitat. Also planned is a circular walkway to a wooden rooftop platform overlooking the park.

Moreover, two 30-m (98-ft) waterfalls and associated walkways and photo-taking sites will be created at three abandoned stone quarry pits on Jigong Hill, which rises behind the Museum & Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. Nearby, three sightseeing bridges will be erected over a flood drainage channel to connect the quarry site with the larger north section of the park. Also planned are steel dam gates with water storage and tidal resistance functions.

Waterfalls will grace abandoned quarry in south section of park

A parking lot near the flood drainage channel has been completed, according to Huang Huaning, chairman of Zhuhai Zhengfang Public Resources Operation. 

The tract was previously upgraded with walkways, distinctive rest stations, lighting, and recreational facilities. Some 800 trees were transplanted from Agricultural Paradise, Zhuhai Museum, Jingshan Park, Jinding Pig Farm, Hengqin New Area, and Zhengfang Meixi and Xiangshan Rest Station nurseries. They are of 20 species including giant crape myrtle (lagerstroemia speciosa), kapok, flamboyant (delonix regia), mahogany, and trident maple.

In addition, thousands of trees, among them kapok, Cunan royal palms (roystonea regia), and camphor that were previously randomly scattered across the park, have been rearranged into landscape belts.

Walkways run through the kapok, giant crape myrtle, golden senna (senna surattensis), spicy jatropha (jatropha Integerrima), crape myrtle, and silk floss coppices, as well as the lychee, star fruit, longan, and jackfruit groves, while the footpaths will soon open near century-old banyan trees.

Groves transform urban tract [Photos by Cheng Lin & Wuchangfu / Zhuhai Media Group]