Kunming Golden Temple Park

Camellias next to Golden Temple (Copper palace)

Garden overview

 The camellia garden in KGTP was officially established in 1989. At present， more than 20 new scenic areas with camellias have been developed in KGPT, such as ‘Taihe Heritage’, ‘Axis of the Copper Cultural Corridor’, ‘Excellent Cultivar Zone of Camellia reticulata’, ‘Sasanqua-azalea Zone’, ‘Excellent Cultivar Zone of Camellia japonica’ , ‘Excellent Cultivar Zone of Foreign Camellias’, ‘Historical Cultural Camellia Garden’, ‘World Camellia Exhibition Garden’, ‘ Greenhouse’ and ‘Camellia Exhibition Zone’, as well as the supporting facilities, such as ‘Nursery of Camellia Resources in Theaceae’ and ‘Camellia Propagation Center’. 

KGTP thus becomes a veritable theme park integrated with the features of excellent facilities, reasonable layout, a comprehensive set of travel and entertainment activities, research on new cultivars, science education, germplasm collection, production practices, sales and other developments. Since 1989, KGTP has annually organized more than 28 camellia exhibitions at different levels, two of which are at the national level, namely the 2nd National Camellia Exhibition in 1991 and the 9th National Camellia Expo in 2015.  KGTP is the only host to hold twice the National–level Camellia Exhibition in China.

Famous big palm tree Caryota urens  living in KGTP besides a lake before the museum

Our camellias

KGTP has been tightly bound to camellia in its long history. It was clearly recorded that as early as the 30th Wanli Year of Ming Dynasty (1602), there were many beautiful camellias planted in KGTP area (the Mingfeng Mountain). Among these camellias, three are the most famous camellias from Ming Dynasty to present: the 1st has been situated in the back yard of the Forbidden City in Taihe Palace, is now called ‘Houye Diechi’ of Camellia reticulata; the other two, known as ‘Shizitou’ have been planted in the front of the Copper Palace. So far the latter two camellias are still blooming with numerous flowers in the flowering season, which were more than 400 years old. Now, as a whole KGTP has an area of over 67 hectares with camellias, with the very rich collection of 1215 taxa (original Camellia species and cultivars), and the camellia plants in the park amounted to 400,510 individual plants. In recent years, KGTP has successfully registered and published 12 new cultivars of Camellia reticulata called Mingfeng Series, namely ‘Mingfeng Chenhui’, ‘Mingfeng Wanxia’, ‘Mingfeng Diechi’, ‘Mingfeng Caiyu’, ‘Mingfeng Qilin’, ‘Mingfeng Luandie’, ’Mingfeng Fencai’, ‘Mingfeng Hudie’, ‘Mingfeng Feihe’, ‘Mingfeng Danxia’ , ‘Mingfeng Diewu’ and ‘Mingfeng Jiangtao’, which have been promoted and applied to many fields in horticulture circle,  and whose beautiful flowers and hardy characters have won high praise. “Camellias filled in the whole park” and “All paths along with camellias” are the best two phrases to describe the landscape in KGTP.

Camellia reticulata ‘Mingfeng Qilin’