Portland Classical Chinese Garden

Created to nurture and inspire all who visit, this Garden is little changed from what might have greeted you during the Ming dynasty in China. Portland's is an authentic Suzhou-style garden.

It grew out of a friendship between Portland and Suzhou, a city renowned for its exquisite gardens. This walled Garden encloses a full city block. Serpentine walkways, a bridged lake, and open colonnades set off meticulously arranged landscape of plants, water, stone, poetry, and buildings. Architects and artisans from China who designed and constructed the Garden mean for each aspect of the Garden to convey artistic effect and symbolic importance.

The design embodies the duality of nature, yin and yang. When these are balanced, harmony results. The delicate balance in the Garden affects all your senses. Hear the sound of water dripping from the crescent-shaped tiles onto a banana leaf; enjoy the fragrance of jasmine or wintersweet; feel the sensation of each footstep on the mosaic stone paths. The Portland Classical Chinese Garden began as a dream in the early 1980's. It became more focused when Portland and Suzhou, China, became sister cities in 1988 and the idea of a building a Suzhou-style garden in Portland became a goal. The majority of the plants in the Garden are indigenous to China; however, they were grown in the United States.

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