Beijing's major streets and ring roads have been coated with blooming pink Chinese roses, adding more colors to the national capital with a pleasant view.
Roses grow along the second, third and fourth ring roads -- the main arteries of Beijing. The city's greening department says it selected a special variety for the traffic-heavy roads.
"The variety selected for the Guomao bridge area is Yueding, a new strain we cultivated on our own in Beijing. This strain of rose is prominent in its improvement the rose's traits of vehicle exhaust-, drought-, and heat-resistance, and its flowering period is longer with greater flower volume," said Ji Peng, deputy director of the Urban Greening Division of Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau.
The pink Chinese rose Yueding's flowering period lasts from early May to mid-November, up to 200 days.
To guarantee the growth and ultra-long flowering period of the roses, the greening department has installed smart irrigation systems in bridge areas, with flower boxes equipped with precision drip irrigation devices that automatically adjust water volume and irrigation time according to weather conditions.
The Chinese rose is the city flower of Beijing and has become an iconic flower for the city's ecological landscape.
Currently, Beijing has grown nearly 2,000 Chinese rose varieties, including some 200 self-bred varieties, and has built rose landscape belts stretching over 1,000 kilometers.
"In the process of building the capital into a garden city, we focus on creating greening scenes around people's living quarters. Different areas are decorated with different colors to match their tone, allowing people to have refreshed feelings about the surroundings when they go from place to place. This is also to keep citizens in a pleasant mood when they are commuting to and from work," Ji said.
Blooming Chinese roses decorate Beijing's major roads
The newly upgraded Huanggang Port connecting the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Chinese mainland recorded more than 3.44 million inbound and outbound passenger trips in its first month of operation, averaging 114,000 per day -- a 120 percent year-on-year increase, as Shenzhen prepares for the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Week.
With the event approaching, all 25 APEC-dedicated channels across Shenzhen's ports in south China have been opened to facilitate the entry of participants and media from APEC member economies.
The upgraded Huanggang Port is operating smoothly, with its single-day passenger flow recently hitting the highest level since 2019.
At Huanggang Port, travelers now only need to queue once and present their documents once to complete immigration procedures for both sides.
"Usually it takes about one minute to go through customs on both sides. My fastest time was 36 seconds," said a passenger from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Huanggang Port is the only 24-hour land passenger port between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Since November, Shenzhen's ports have opened a total of 25 APEC-dedicated inspection channels. Among them, the Huanggang Border Inspection Station has processed 14,000 trips of foreign nationals from APEC economies, a month-on-month increase of 102 percent. "Facing the continuous high passenger flow, the Huanggang Border Inspection Station has strengthened early warning and analysis, continuously enhanced communication and coordination with the Hong Kong side, cross-border operating units, and foreign affairs departments, and reinforced our multilingual service team to ensure efficient and smooth customs clearance," said Yang Huan, staff member at the Huanggang Border Inspection Station.
As China's largest single port building and the world's largest land port complex, the facility covers a total floor area of 689,700 square meters, featuring four underground and five above-ground floors.
The original Huanggang Port, which opened in 1989, was China's first large-scale land port with 24-hour clearance. Reconstruction on the original site began in 2019 to meet the surging demand for cross-border passage.
Upgraded Huanggang Port handles over 3.44 million passenger trips in first month
