The Garden of Cultivation (Yipu Yuan)

The Garden of Cultivation is a small scale garden with artistic characteristics of the Ming dynasty. The entire garden's layout is plain and open, with a natural and simple style; not overly elaborate and affected. Its artistic value is much higher than Later Qing gardens. The layout of mountains and waters, pavilions, terraces and buildings, as well as the detailed arrangement of a single rock and a single tree express simple, unsophisticated and elegant attributes. A method of condensation is used to express the garden construction's basic theory and concepts. The Garden of Cultivation started to be built during the Ming dynasty, and was called Yaopu to start with. During Early Qing the name was changed to the Garden of Cultivation; it was also named "Jingting Mountain Cottage". The garden's entire area comprises 0.33 hectare, with residence occupying more than half. The garden part occupies only 0.13 hectare.

The garden's arrangement is open and simple; buildings, ponds and mountain trees are laid out from north to south successively. This is the most basic method of arrangement of a Suzhou garden. In the south-western corner there are some small courtyards comprising secondary views; these give the feeling of arriving at a very calm and joyful place. In accordance with the characteristics of a small garden, its builders do not try to attend to each and every aspect; thus some nonessential details are lost. All effort are used to create one artistic garden view; with hills shrouded in mist, with waves stretching far into the distance, with trees, springs and deep pools, with lofty pavilions and terraces. This garden uses all this to obtain a result of containing a 157 thousand seas and giving forth the brilliance of four seasons.