Exhibition Greenhouse, Zhengzhou Botanical Garden (郑州植物园展览温室)

Zhengzhou Botanical Garden is a recent addition to the capital of Henan. Work began in September 2007 and the garden opened to the public on 1 May 2009, on 1,035 mu (about 69 hectares) at the corner of Longhai Road and the West Fourth Ring Road in Zhongyuan District. It is run by the municipal landscaping bureau and borders the city's Olympic sports centre to the north.

The large exhibition greenhouse belonged to the original scheme: the ground-source heat pump that conditions it was completed and brought into service in 2009, the year the garden opened. Since 1 October 2016 entry to the garden has been free.

After an upgrade, the greenhouse reopened on 30 September 2020 with an exhibition on the tropical rainforest, staged jointly with Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Running for a month, it combined living plants, 39 panels and about a hundred documents and objects on the thirteen long-established peoples of Xishuangbanna, and visitor numbers were capped at 3,000 a day. In December that year the house received twelve plants billed as the star species of the Belt and Road countries, most of them native to desert and arid regions of Africa and South America.

The city of Zhengzhou describes the greenhouse as the only hall in the province devoted chiefly to collecting and showing tropical plants. The building offers 5,400 m² of floor area and rises to 30.4 m. Its design is derived from the bianzhong, the sets of bronze chime bells that stand for the culture of the Central Plains, a reference the city presents as a tribute to the breadth of that tradition. Chinese Wikipedia, which calls it the garden's landmark building, gives an area of nearly 10,000 m², a figure the municipal source does not confirm.

Inside, the space is divided into three display areas: tropical and subtropical plants, plants of sandy and arid ground, and tropical rainforest. The climate is regulated by a ground-source heat pump sized for the full 5,400 m², which allows tropical plants to be shown in every season. The sources consulted name neither the architect nor the engineers, and they give no detail of the frame or the type of glazing.

The sources describe two main settings, a rainforest rich in rare species and a section of desert plants, alongside an area of tropical and subtropical plants. During the 2020 upgrade more than thirty kinds of flowering plants, among them 凤梨, 蝴蝶兰 and 红掌, together with some ten desert plants such as 白鲸, were renewed, more than 600 plants in all. At the reopening 九里香, 鸡蛋花, 蝴蝶兰, 跳舞兰 and 铁兰 were in flower, while papaya, coffee and 蛋黄果 trees were bearing fruit. The 2020 exhibition also displayed seeds of more than 70 rainforest plants, including the 海椰子 and several members of the 龙脑香科 family.

The twelve Belt and Road plants that arrived in December 2020 include an African baobab from Xiamen with a trunk 5 m tall and about 20 cm across, the 金边象脚丝兰, the 稻草人, described as a 树丝兰 (tree yucca) imported from Mexico, and the 仁王冠, also from Mexico.

The garden lies on the west side of the city, at 81 West Fourth Ring Road, and is reached by metro lines 6 and 14 to Olympic Sports Centre station. It falls into two parts: to the east, fifteen specialist gardens including a rose garden and a peony garden; to the west, ten themed gardens, among them a children's exploration garden and a bonsai garden.

The greenhouse, intended to give the public tropical plants to look at in every season, suits a winter visit, while the rose and peony gardens take over in the warmer months. Several flower shows follow one another through the year, and four free guided talks a day were offered during the 2020 rainforest exhibition.