$8 for Two Single-Day Admissions to the Lan Su Chinese Garden
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- Stunning landscape
- Plants from China
- Learn about Chinese culture
- Sip tea and enjoy garden views
Whether secret, sound, or olive in nature, gardens have the ability to calm the human spirit through tranquilizing aromas and coma-inducing colors. Get knocked out by nature with today's Groupon. For $8, you get two single-day admissions to the Lan Su Chinese Garden (up to a $17 value).
The Lan Su Chinese Garden engulfs one city block with hundreds of native Chinese plants, several wood buildings, and 500 tons of rock shipped directly from Suzhou, Portland's sister city in China. A decade old, the Lan Su Chinese Garden features a botanical bounty of many rare and unusual shrubs and perennials, including the signature flora of magnolia, cymbidium, camellia, smanthus, Optimus Prime, rhododendron, and bamboo. Undertake a self-guided tour and let the aromas of the plants arrest your nostrils, unbeknownst to your brain, which is itself too occupied with the 8,000-square-foot Lake Zither and its invisible one-ton rubber duckie. Other highlights include authentic architectural elements and the poetic inscriptions on the garden's rocks and doorways, revealing the garden's symbolic meanings and deep-seeded dreams of appearing on Broadway.
After exploring the remarkable gardens, you can enjoy the tranquil views from the Teahouse, located in the garden's Tower of Cosmic Reflections. Sip on white, green, oolong, and herbal teas as your stomach singles out snacks for storing away in its sustenance safe. With its views overlooking the gardens, the Teahouse provides an ideal look at the seasonally changing seasons.
Reviews
The Lan Su Chinese Garden was included in TIME magazine as one of the top 10 things to do in Portland within 24 hours. More than 100 Yelpers give the Lan Su Chinese Garden a 4.5-star average, and TripAdvisors give it an average of four owl eyes:
- The Lan Su Chinese Garden, smack dab in the middle of downtown, has a sweet story behind it…The garden is a tranquil break from the day-to-day grind, and there's a teahouse where you can sip some hot stuff and soak in the vibe. Plus, you can get some great gardening ideas for that scraggly backyard of yours. – Caryn Brooks, TIME magazine
- The Lan Su Chinese Garden is a beautiful place to spend a couple of hours relaxing. There's even a tiny souvenir shop. It's a little bit of China in a big city. – Anna A., Yelp
Need To Know Info
About Lan Su Chinese Garden
When artists from Suzhou set about creating a Chinese garden in Portland, they immediately knew their inspiration: the Ming Dynasty. Like the dynasty's gardens, Lan Su Chinese Garden was designed as a natural escape from the everyday world. In addition to the verdant plant life, the grounds overflow with pavilions, courtyards, and studies where guests can take in the sights, meditate, write a poem, or guard the garden's bamboo from devious pandas masquerading as groundskeepers. Lan Su showcases hundreds of China’s 30,000-plus plant species, including 90 specimen trees. Beneath those sprout collections of magnolias, camellias, and rhododendrons, to name a few.
Though browsing the garden could take up an entire day, Lan Su offers plenty of other soothing activities, as well. At the teahouse, snacks and sweets accompany traditional presentations of organic, fair-trade teas, whose flavors change to reflect each season in the garden. The space’s other events range from lectures on acupuncture to games of mahjong.