LANZHOU: Zhai Shuang’er rises early each day to visit his old friends — the ancient and rare trees in the downtown area of Tianshui, a city in northwest China’s Gansu Province.
He observes the growth of each tree by touching its trunk and checking the growth of the leaves, jotting the details in a notebook. “The ancient trees are like living fossils of a city, recording the changes in the city and carrying people’s nostalgia for the past. They deserve meticulous care,” he said.
Sixty-year-old Zhai is a landscape engineer with a Tianshui-based engineering company focused on greening. He has been engaged in landscaping and restoring ancient trees for more than three decades.
Dating back over 2,700 years, Tianshui is home to more than 2,900 ancient and precious trees. Of the total, more than 100 are over 1,000 years old, according to statistics released by the Tianshui forestry and grassland bureau in 2019. As a native of the city, Zhai said his childhood memories are closely related to ancient trees.
“There was an elm tree that was around 500 years old in the alley where I grew up. The hollow crown of the tree made it a paradise for me and my friends to play hide-and-seek in,” he recalled.
However, due to lack of effective protection measures, many ancient trees suffered from pests and plant diseases, natural disasters, pollution, and human behaviors, including graffiti.
To solve these problems, in 2019, Tianshui approved a set of regulations on the protection of the city’s ancient and famous trees. –Agencies
