Glass Greenhouse, Yuntai Garden (云台花园玻璃温室)

Yuntai Garden occupies the Santailing area at the foot of Baiyun Mountain, north of central Guangzhou; its name joins the "yun" of Baiyun with the "tai" of Santailing. Designed by the Guangzhou Landscape Architecture Design Institute, it was modelled, according to one descriptive entry, on the Butchart Gardens in Canada, and it presents itself as a large flower garden that combines Chinese landscape composition with Western-style planting. Sources differ on the opening date: a local media article of 2025 gives the Spring Festival of 1995, while other entries give September 1995.

To create the garden, the designers reshaped existing hills; one knoll, to the right of the central axis, received the glass greenhouse, which has remained one of the garden's main features alongside the rose garden and the waterfall.

In October 2021 the regional press reported that a renovation of the greenhouse had been completed in time for the National Day holiday. Thirty years after opening, the garden appears in several landscape-architecture textbooks and serves as a field-study site for schools in the discipline. Since late 2024 a Line 11 metro station has carried its name, and a path links it to the neighbouring Yunluo Botanical Garden.

The greenhouse covers 1,200 m² and rises 24 m above the ground at its highest point. Its plan is based on the form of an orchid flower: seen from above, the building traces the outline of a bloom, produced by a composition based on non-concentric radii.

The glass walls reveal a long-span steel frame whose tension and supple lines are singled out by the local press. Set on the crown of a knoll to the right of the garden's central axis, it rises above the flower beds. Inside, the space is organised into three zones, high, middle and low, each devoted to one group of plants.

The greenhouse is described as a pocket-sized tropical botanical garden. Its three levels correspond to three collections. The upper zone is given over to cacti and other succulents, including agaves and a range of fleshy-leaved species. The middle zone gathers palms chosen for their unusual forms, together with tree ferns. The lower zone is devoted to orchids: six groups of cultivated orchids are shown alongside traditional Chinese orchids.

According to the regional press, the 2021 renovation reworked the interior planting, adding a hydrangea display and a rainforest path intended to strengthen the tropical effect.

The greenhouse lies within Yuntai Garden, at one of the entrances to the Baiyun Mountain scenic area, a few hundred metres from Yuntai Huayuan metro station on Line 11. It is best seen together with the rose garden and the waterfall flanked by a 101-step glass staircase. The site is known for flowering throughout the year and for themed borders renewed for public holidays, such as the nine borders laid out in autumn 2026 across Yuntai and the Yunluo Botanical Garden. The Baiyun Mountain cable car leaves close by, so the visit can continue up the slopes.