Cui Zhuang Ancient Jujube Garden

Cui Zhuang Ancient Jujube Garden

The Cui Zhuang Ancient Jujube Garden is a cultural relic protection unit of Tianjin Municipality.

The Cui Zhuang Ancient Jujube Garden is located in Cui Zhuang Village, Taiping Town, Dagang District, Binhai New Area, Tianjin, dating back to the Ming Dynasty.

The ancient jujube garden is located in Cui Zhuang Village. Originally, the entire village was built within the orchard. During the steel-smelting campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s, some ancient jujube trees were felled, and now only the northwestern section of the orchard still contains ancient trees. The existing ancient jujube garden covers 1,500 acres. To the south lies Niangniang River, to the north is the Jin’gang Highway, and to the west is the Jingshan Expressway (which shares the same route as the Rongwu Expressway in the Dagang section). There are 168 jujube trees that are 600 years old, 3,232 trees that are 400 years old, and 13,000 trees that are 100 years old. The orchard was first established during the early Ming Dynasty by Liu Hong, a native of Shandong. By the reign of Emperor Hongli, it was designated by imperial decree as a “tribute jujube,” which was offered to the court annually until the end of the Qing Dynasty. The spacing and grafting techniques of the trees reflect an understanding of the growth patterns of winter jujubes. Each ancient tree bears marks from historical “cincturing” practices, making it an important physical relic of ancient fruit tree cultivation in China.

On January 5, 2013, it was announced by the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government as part of the fourth batch of Tianjin Cultural Relic Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of Tianjin Cultural Relic Protection Units