Jeonnam Province Establishes 'Garden Network' Linking Local Gardens and Arboretums

15 Projects and 43.2 Billion Won Investment... The Largest Scale Nationwide

[Muan=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Jeonnam Province announced on the 23rd that it will establish the ‘Jeonnam Garden Network’ linked with local gardens and arboretums.

The Jeonnam Garden Network centers around Suncheonman Bay National Garden (Eastern region), Wando National Subtropical Arboretum (Southwestern region), and Damyang National Korean Garden Culture Center (Northern region).

To this end, the province plans to promote local forest tourism by encouraging residents to enjoy garden life through discovering content such as linked tourism tours and experience programs among the three regions, as well as strengthening joint SNS promotions to attract tourists.

To build the garden network foundation, this year the province will invest 43.2 billion KRW in 15 projects, the largest scale nationwide, including the creation of new gardens and the spread of garden culture in daily life.

Major large-scale projects include ▲National Wando Subtropical Arboretum (187.2 billion KRW) ▲2023 Suncheonman International Garden Expo (46.7 billion KRW) ▲National Korean Garden Culture Center (19.6 billion KRW). These three projects were recently selected as large-scale national projects by the Korea Forest Service, with Jeonnam chosen as the final site last year.

Local garden infrastructure projects include ▲the 1st Jeonnam Garden Festival ▲resident-friendly gardens ▲community gardens linked to the Clean Jeonnam Best Village initiative ▲regional base local gardens ▲Namak Modunuri Open Forest ▲smart gardens in public facilities and medical institutions ▲and training of garden experts.

Additionally, there are plans to link distinctive private gardens and arboretums created and maintained by individuals. Jeonnam currently operates 14 private gardens and 3 private arboretums.

In particular, Haenam Forest Arboretum, Gurye Ssangsan-jae, and Boseong Yunjelim (Seongrim Garden) rapidly emerged as hot spots within the province last year despite COVID-19, attracting many tourists.

Haenam Forest Arboretum, which had 100,000 visitors last year, is popular among young people for its hydrangea flowers and summer festival. A small garden reflecting Eastern and Western humanities was created, and it was recently selected by the Korea Tourism Organization as a ‘Small-scale Potential Tourism Site Development Target.’

Gurye Ssangsan-jae, the filming location of the tvN drama ‘Youn’s Stay’ (starring Youn Yeo-jeong), is also gaining popularity through word of mouth. The old house garden and garden explanations, blending deep history and nature, are warmly received, steadily increasing visitors.

The transformation of Boseong Yunjelim, managed by three generations, is also interesting. Traditional forest management passed down from CEO Jeong Eun-jo’s father has been transformed into a stay-type forest tourism 6th industry complex with garden-style forests, attracting many tourists even during COVID-19.

Jeonnam Governor Kim Young-rok said, “We will continuously expand gardens that residents can feel by planting large trees around their living areas,” and added, “Until now, forest leisure facilities have been developed mainly by the government, but from now on, we will focus on activating private-led gardens and stay-type forest tourism.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.