Recently, the “Most Beautiful Balcony” selection event of the 2025 Daxing District Rose Culture Festival, jointly hosted by the Daxing District Bureau of Gardens and Greening and the Gaomidian Sub-district Office, came to an end. The expert review panel made a comprehensive assessment based on multiple dimensions such as space utilization, creative design, and maintenance results, and ultimately selected one first prize winner, three second prize winners, and six third prize winners.
01 The balcony transforms into an aesthetic theater.
The “Most Beautiful Balcony” selection event this time has sparked the enthusiasm of the whole people to participate and given rise to a wealth of green creativity. Since its official launch in June, a total of 110 households from Gaomi Street and surrounding communities have submitted their entries.
The winning entries are full of highlights. Some have created a “cozy garden” with irregular-shaped flower stands, while others have combined home decoration to create a “poetic abode”. The participating families have transformed the functionally single balconies into life theaters with both aesthetic value and emotional warmth through ingenious plant combinations and spatial designs, demonstrating the refined interests that can be carried on a small balcony. Ms. Li, the first-prize winner, said with emotion, “The roses have not only beautified the balcony but also become a bond for family interaction. My child now takes the initiative to water and care for them every day. This is truly an unexpected surprise.”
02 Create new scenarios for horticultural consumption
Daxing District has innovatively established a “scene experience – skills training – consumption loop” service system. It has created a family gardening model room at the Damping Sports Center, simulating living scenes in the living room and balcony, and showcasing spatial arrangement plans for roses and green plants. It has also collaborated with family gardeners to hold multiple online and offline training sessions, covering practical skills such as soil mixing and pest control. At the same time, it has worked with key local flower enterprises to display preferred self-bred flower varieties. Through the dual drive of “selection + service”, it has promoted the transformation of family gardening from a “decorative activity” to a “sustainable lifestyle”.
The Gao Midian Damping Sports Center is surrounded by the first garden-style demonstration street and five urban galleries in Daxing District. For the first time, it has introduced a family gardening sample room, featuring the ‘Promise’ and ‘Napoway’ rose varieties independently cultivated by local flower enterprises in Daxing District, complemented by shade-tolerant green plants and water-saving devices. This addresses the concerns of citizens regarding insufficient light on their balconies and the time-consuming maintenance. The center’s operation manager said, “During the relaxation period after exercise, citizens can enjoy tea and read books among the flowers. This combination of ‘essential needs and leisure’ has increased the average daily foot traffic by 15%.” The “scene-driven industry” model has opened up a new path for the “flower appreciation economy”.
03 Building a Garden City Together
Recently, Daxing District plans to launch a series of extended activities such as “Master Classes on Rose Care” and “DIY Experience of Eternal Roses”, inviting horticulturists to teach on-site. From the municipal flower display at Yongding Park to the greenery on family balconies, from professional nurseries to commercial complexes, roses have become a distinct symbol of Daxing District’s garden city construction, achieving the all-round infiltration of ecological value.
Li Hui, deputy director of the Bureau of Gardens and Greening of Daxing District, said that the family is the smallest unit of a city. The promotion of model rooms extends the greenery from parks and streets to balconies and window sills, forming a “city-wide garden” network. The selection of the most beautiful balconies is a vivid practice of citizens’ participation in the construction of a garden city. When every window exudes the fragrance of flowers, the vision of a garden city will be within reach.
In the future, Daxing District will take family gardening as an important entry point, continuously explore the green development model of “government guidance – enterprise participation – citizen co-construction”, promote the transformation of “seeing greenery through the window and entering a garden upon stepping out” from a vision to a norm, and jointly build a garden city where “everyone is a gardener and everywhere is a garden”.