Wintersweets bloom in the first Waigang Wintersweet Festival, Jan 5, 2009.

The first Waigang Wintersweet Festival kicks off in Shanghai's Jiading District, Jan 5, 2009. Waigang's wintersweet tour is expected to be a new highlight of the city's winter tourism.

Waigang Town of Jiading District has the tradition of loving and growing wintersweet. Its wintersweet, along with Chongming narcissus and Fengxian russianolive, are hailed as "the three treasures of Shanghai" by gardening circle.

It is said on the festival's open-cut ceremony that the Waigang Wintersweet Garden under construction covers an area of 1,500 mu, and it will be built into a AAA-level wintersweet-themed agricultural tourism and leisure park focusing on flower planting and picking, angling for fish and agritainment. By then, Waigang's wintersweet tour is expected to be a hot destination in the winter tourism market in Shanghai and east China.

By Wang Jiaye

Source: english.eastday.com