In the land of Xizhou Township, a poet has bred a native tree species in Taiwan. He takes care of each sapling with his sincere warm heart, in a very patient and careful way to nourish them growing healthy and strong. He is Mr. Cheng Wu.

Photo of Mr. Cheng Wu

Name: Sheng-hsiung Wu
Pen name: Cheng Wu

Mr. Wu lives in Zhenliao Village, Xizhou Township, Changhua County. He and his wife, Mrs. Fang-hua Chuang, have a daughter and two sons. Hsien-ning Wu is their eldest son, the youngest son named Chih-ning Wu and the daughter's name is Yin-ning Wu. His children are very supportive of his idea and are willing to promote his environmental native tree idea together with him. Especially the youngest son Chih-ning, always participates in promotional activities with his father. He is fond of music, he often adapts his father's poems into songs so that people who like his music can also have a general understanding of Mr. Wu's idea and thus caring about Taiwan's environment.

The cover of this picnic album was designed by Chih-ning Wu, Mr. Cheng Wu's son

Year 2014 marks the centenary birthday of Mrs. Chun Wu Chen, Mr. Cheng Wu's mother. Chih-ning, Cheng Wu's youngest son, decided to make a poetry album in memory of this special date. The poetry album was called "Picnic" containing nine poems with homeland feelings and rurality as its content, written by Mr. Cheng Wu and composed by Chih-ning Wu.

II. Build Pure Garden

The entrance image of Pure Garden, designed by Mr. Cheng Wu's students

Chun Wu Chen died, his brothers wanted to sell the farmland, however, Mr. Cheng Wu was reluctant to do so because his mother's worked so hard on it. So he decided to buy this land with his son Hsien-ning and implant the best native tree species in Taiwan, then started to promote environmental protection, making Taiwan a better land.

It is not enough for Cheng Wu to plant the nativetrees only in Pure Garden, because it's such a small land for environmental protection, barely cause any effect. What he wants is to plant these seeds of trees all over Taiwan in the future so that people can see the vitality of these trees, awakening people's awareness of protecting the environment, therefore everyone can protect and love this land.

Pure Garden is the secret spot for fulfilling Mr. Cheng Wu's dream of planting the native trees

Mr. Wu planted Taiwan native trees in the two hectares of farmland (two hectares) that his mother who lived in Zhenliao Village, Changhua Country in Xizhou Township farmed in her whole life, and named it "Pure Garden".

Mr. Cheng Wu told us the reason he named it "Pure Garden" is that his mother's name is Chen Chun in the standard Mandarin: which sounds like "Dan Chun" in the native language spoken in Taiwan, and also the character "Chun" means "Pure" in Chinese. In memory of my mother, this land is named [Pure Garden]. Therefore, Mr. Cheng Wu hopes that the Pure Garden is literally as pure and crystal as it means."

Xihzou's mother river -- Tzu Tsai Pi Chun

Cheng Wu is a child. The air was clean, the river was clear. He often went to the river catching fish and shrimps with his classmates after school. However nowadays, on the contrary, the river is filled with garbage, there is no a whiff of freshness in the air, let alone the tress are all got cut down. Mr. Cheng Wu could not bear the thought of that, so he decided to start on his own building up his dreamland himself.

Photos set by the sideway

Mr. Cheng Wu felt that Taiwanese did not cherish what they have owned and pretty much already cleared out the trees, that's when the determination of planting trees was made. At the very beginning, the villagers were concerned, asked questions like, "When will these trees pay you back? It must be going to take several years for them to harvest." Generally speaking, it takes a tree about 20 years to grow into a large one. But what Mr. Wu wanted was to continue planting trees from generations to generations, just like our elders, the trees we now enjoyed today is what they planted at their times.  Therefore, we shall be grateful and cherish what we have now and keep planting trees for the future generations.

Picture exhibition in the tree gallery

Map showing Hsi Yang Junior High School and Pure Garden Pure Garden address: Sec. 3, Xixia Rd., Zunliao Vil., Xizhou Township, Changhua County ─Pure Garden (Cheng Wu’s tree garden)

Forest in Pure Garden

Mr. Cheng Wu fully aware that people can never embrace the important conception of protecting trees as fast as they cutting down the trees. He expected the features of the native trees -- grow slowly but tough inside, the older the tree, the higher its value. He hopes people could be more like the trees, and fully embrace the concept of protecting trees from inside.

After the typhoon, we strolled around on bicycles and saw the whole row of trees fell neatly aside like dominoes. Some were broken in the waist and some were uprooted. And I kept wondering that if there is any trees can stick to the ground and grasp the soil firmly? And then we rode to a place where trees were standing like nothing ever happened, they were so straight and neat with an inner strength, nothing like those trees fell aside the walkway. So we wondered, why those trees are much stronger? What kind of trees are they? Who planted those trees?

Therefore...