The Couple's Garden Retreat

The Couple's Garden Retreat

Located near the eastern city wall of Suzhou at Xiao Xin Qiao Lane and surrounded by the moat and canals from three sides, it has a housing complex in the middle, flanked by the East and West Gardens, containing an allusion to "Couple’s Garden Retreat". Hence the name. Mirrored in the clear water of a pond at the East Garden is a magnificent range of realistic yellowstone mountains believed to be piled up during the Ming Dynasty. Made of ormosia wood, the circular door frame of the Amongst Mountains and Water Pavilion was carved with an open-work picture of "three Friends in the Dead of Winter", namely pine, bamboo, and plum, instinct with life, an art treasure of this sort in the classical gardens of Suzhou. The West Garden also contains a number of fascinating mini-gardens decorated with limestone peaks and flowering shrubs.