Photo shows an artist's rendering of the expo site on Baiguo Mountain near urban Qingdao.

With the 2014 International Horticultural Exposition two years away, the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao has been busy preparing for the gala.

With a planned exposition area of 241 hectares, the space will be divided into two parts - one for the theme shows and the other for visitors.

Its theme is "Charms of a Green World", and the entire exposition area is laid out based on a story of seven heavenly maidens.

As the tale goes, the maidens were scattering flowers and exploring the most beautiful places on earth before they finally came upon Qingdao. They decided to stop there and as they descended, seven bands of distinctive colors began to fall.

Based on this concept, the exposition area is built with one axis and seven zones. The axis is a flower belt extending from the north end of the exposition area to the main entrance at the south. This river of petals empties into an ocean of flowers at the southern square.

The "seven belts", as the seven zones are called, are colored red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple, and have different functions.

The red Chinese park consists of booths for different provinces and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions as well as demonstration areas for cities in the host province of Shandong.

The orange horticultural park has distinctive showrooms, including an indoor plant hall, one exhibition room for renowned designers and one for young designers.

The yellow park takes its cues from the Compendium of Materia Medica, a noted work on traditional Chinese medical care written more than 400 years ago. It plans to showcase the latest research using plants to fight illnesses caused by pollution.

The green part is designed for children and provides them with learning opportunities through fairytale-like activities.

In the cyan park, visitors will discover the wonders of nature through the latest scientific facilities.

The blue park will focus on low-carbon technology, and the purple international park will showcase the horticulture of foreign countries.

For more information, please visit http://www.qingdaoexpo2014.org

By Xu Xiao (China Daily)

xuxiao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/07/2012 page24)