To green their ancient alleys, Beijing’s hutong gardeners get creative

On his morning rounds after a summer rainstorm breaks Beijing’s heat, Zhao Shisheng inspects his favorite vine of gourds. 

From a small pot of dirt set against the wall of his back alley home, the vine climbs a bamboo pole, rising past mops hung out to dry. From there, it scales window ledges, pipes, and electricity wires, soaring toward a makeshift trellis Mr. Zhao built on his rooftop.

In fact, Mr. Zhao’s prolific, potted garden – bursting with vines of melon, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, and beans – is rapidly enveloping his modest, one-story house, where he lives with three generations of his family and a pet parrot.

“This is my hobby,” says Mr. Zhao with a smile. 

Mr. Zhao counts himself among the ranks of Beijing’s hutong gardeners – the avid, green-thumbed residents who work wonders in the city’s maze-like ancient neighborhoods, tucked behind skyscrapers and traffic-clogged avenues. In hutongs, as the narrow alleys are called in Chinese, people travel more slowly – often by bicycle or by foot – affording them time to enjoy the lush bounty, and admire the gardeners’ horticultural feats. 

“We eat some and I share the rest with neighbors. I don’t need to sell what I grow. I already have a way to make a living,” Mr. Zhao says, pointing to a tiny convenience shop in the front room of his house.

These gardens are largely vertical, rising like Jack’s beanstalk out of humble clay pots or small planters. Vibrant vines and curly tendrils cling to the old stone and rounded tiles of the traditional courtyard homes. Their rustling leaves create a soothing sound and welcome shade as they arc over alleys and courtyards on trellises.

Like many of the gardeners, Mr. Zhao takes pride in cultivating beauty on the hutong where he and his family have lived for generations. “We’ve been here for more than 100 years,” he says. “I am a descendant of the [Qing Dynasty] Empress Dowager Cixi,” he adds, referring to the 19th-century Manchu concubine-turned-noblewoman who effectively ruled China for 50 years until 1908.

Indeed, around the corner next to another hutong garden, a plein-air painter has set up an easel and canvas to capture the scene. “This plant is a loofah gourd,” says Liu Changli, dabbing leaves on his watercolor tableau. “People in Beijing like to grow it because you can eat it, or simply enjoy looking at it.”

The leafy summer setting in the old alley, set against the backdrop of Beijing’s high-rises, offers inspiration for Mr. Liu, an architect by trade who paints both for leisure and in drawing up designs. “Here my paintings can contrast the traditional hutongs with modern architecture,” says Mr. Liu, who belongs to a painters’ group in Beijing.

The grower of the loofah gourds, Zhao Guangliang, steps out his door carrying a potted tomato that needs a sunnier exposure. Space is precious in the hutongs, where people live in crowded conditions and share public toilets. So gardeners must be creative. Assisted with strategically placed bamboo, they use every nook and cranny for plants. One of Mr. Zhao’s neighbors arrays plants on the roof of an unused van. Mr. Zhao opts, for now, to seat his tomato on a small chair.

A longtime hutong resident, Mr. Zhao eagerly shows a passerby his winter melon plants, and hot peppers. Then he springs a pop quiz: “What’s this?” he asks. “Hmmm….a ‘kugua’ [bitter melon]?” the passerby ventures, tipped off by the melon’s bumpy skin. Mr. Zhao beams. “Correct!” Encouraged, he guides the visitor across the alley to check out his neighbor’s bumper crop of cucumbers and eggplants, pointing out a big gourd clinging to a surveillance camera.

When it’s time for the visitor to depart, Mr. Zhao sends her off with a wave.

“Come by again when you are free!” he says.

Visit with them for a time, and the gardeners enjoy sharing not only growing tips, but also how to use different plants in cooking and other practical ways. “This is a Sichuan pepper bush I’ve been growing for more than a decade,” boasts Mr. Wang, who withheld his first name for privacy. “You dry out the pepper in the yard, then you can use it to make mapo tofu or meat stew.”

“Whichever plant you like, I can give you one,” he offers. “This is mint. Do you have some in your house? Smell this kind – see how strong it smells? If you get bitten by a mosquito you can crush some and rub it on your skin.”

The conversation meanders from peppers to mint to jasmine, flowing easily and readily as Mr. Wang moves around his compact but fruitful garden.

“It’s good for people to chat like this,” he reflects. “It gets rid of your worries. Come by anytime.” It’s an invitation that, like the hutong gardens, is hard to resist.