Building a crape myrtle garden to lead villagers to prosperity, Guo Xingqiu turns down a job with a 10,000-yuan monthly salary
In late March, Mr. Xiong, a Tianjin entrepreneur of Changde origin, came to Qifeng Mountain Crape Myrtle Garden in Xiyu Village, Jianshi Town, Taoyuan County, Changde City, having heard of its fame, and found "Crape Myrtle Prince" Guo Xingqiu, wanting to pay 2 million yuan to buy all the trees in the crape myrtle garden and then transplant them all to a forest farm in Tianjin. At the same time, he offered to hire Guo Xingqiu at a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, asking him to lead a team to Tianjin to serve his forest farm. However, Guo Xingqiu politely declined all of it.
On April 2, Guo Xingqiu spoke to reporters about the matter and explained: "The crape myrtle garden is the hope for the villagers of Xiyu Village to prosper, and it embodies the painstaking efforts of the people of Xiyu and the people of Xiyu who work and start businesses elsewhere. The crape myrtle garden has just started, and I cannot let down their expectations and my mission."
Guo Xingqiu is called the "Crape Myrtle Prince" not because of his looks, but because he is so obsessed with crape myrtles that he has spent all the family's savings without ever giving up on them.
Guo Xingqiu is 39 years old this year. He returned home after being discharged from the military in 1999, and for 20 years he has stayed on Qifeng Mountain, devoting himself to the horticulture business. At his nursery base of more than 80 mu, 80% is crape myrtle, with more than 200 potted specimens and nearly 100 stump bonsai.
"All these crape myrtle trees of mine were found in deep mountains and old forests; every one of them is a work of art!" Guo Xingqiu said. For these treasures, he gives 100 likes every day.
"Without Guo Xingqiu's crape myrtle garden, there would be no creativity and spiritual drive for the 'Beautiful Xiyu Village Seven-Color Crape Myrtle Garden.'" said Liu Guitang, the village Party branch secretary.
Last December, Xiyu Village launched the beautiful village construction of the "Beautiful Xiyu Village Seven-Color Crape Myrtle Garden," and the villagers actively threw themselves into the village construction, with Guo Xingqiu devoting himself even more fully to it. Over the past nearly 4 months, besides contributing labor, Guo Xingqiu also transplanted crape myrtle saplings he had cultivated to both sides of the village roads. To date, he has not received 1 cent in labor pay or money for the saplings, and he has even used the income from his wife's clinic and help from his older sisters to advance funds to buy other saplings for the beautiful village construction of Xiyu Village. All of this is to attract tourists to Xiyu Village and let the villagers prosper through rural tourism.
Guo Xingqiu's bond with crape myrtle began in 1988. At that time, he was still an innocent 12-year-old boy. In the neighboring village there was a university professor who taught forestry and had retired at home to grow flowers and trees. That winter, Guo Xingqiu went to the professor's house to play, and as soon as he entered the door, he was captivated by the flowers and trees of all sizes in the yard. The smooth, twisted trunks were very different from ordinary trees, somewhat sickly and yet somewhat beautiful. The professor told him, "This is called deformed crape myrtle. When the plant grows to a certain size, it winds in one direction and eventually grows into this appearance. Whatever shape you want it to grow into, you can train it in that direction, and by pruning to create the landscape and shape it, a very ordinary crape myrtle tree becomes a work of art, and its market price will also multiply many times over."
When he was leaving, the old professor gave him several crape myrtle saplings and several popular science books on botany. After returning home, he planted the crape myrtle trees in front of the house, gradually learned the basics about flowers and trees, and also tried shaping them the way the professor did. From then on, Guo Xingqiu fell deeply in love with crape myrtle.
In 2004, Guo Xingqiu and his father contracted the village forest farm and planted tree species such as Chinese fir and Chinese pistache. Crape myrtle grows slowly, so they treated it purely as an ornamental plant and did not plant it on a large scale.
In 2012, while visiting a comrade-in-arms' home in Chenxi, Huaihua, Guo Xingqiu saw many old tree stumps in a pile of firewood. Looking carefully, he discovered that they were actually crape myrtle trees! Guo Xingqiu felt as if he had found a treasure, and quickly bought more than 20 well-shaped stumps and transported them home. In spring, watching the old trees sprout new buds, and in summer and autumn seeing them bloom with purplish-red flowers, Guo Xingqiu's feelings for crape myrtle were ignited once again.
In 2013, he began propagating crape myrtle himself from crape myrtle seeds, and he also learned to graft American crape myrtle. In the autumn and winter seasons, he would go alone, carrying a hoe, a safety rope, and a large pack, riding a motorcycle, to deep mountains and old forests in places such as Guizhou, Xiangxi, and Huaihua to dig for treasures. Once, while searching for treasures by a cliff, he accidentally lost his grip, fell through the air, and hung on a tree branch in midair, and it took him all his strength to land safely. Even now he still shudders at the memory.
Once he had set his goal, he threw himself into it completely. Guo Xingqiu went successively to Taoyuan County town, Changde, Changsha, and other places to study. In July 2015, he attended training held by the provincial garden art association, which gave him another layer of understanding about flowers and trees, especially bonsai. After returning home, he immediately subscribed to flower and tree bonsai magazines and, according to the standards of "old, weak, sick, disabled, and rotten," spent every day thinking about shapes and matching stones for his own flowers and trees. He also planned to build a crape myrtle restaurant, a crape myrtle corridor, and a crape myrtle bonsai garden, so that visiting tourists could experience the many kinds of beauty of crape myrtle.
The title "Crape Myrtle Prince" was bestowed on him by the villagers. Reporters believe that before long, when Guo Xingqiu's crape myrtle restaurant, crape myrtle corridor, and crape myrtle bonsai garden are completed, this title will certainly be known by more people.