From Xinjiang to Linyi, entrepreneur builds a green landscaping business

Wang Xiaomo, an entrepreneur born in Aksu, Xinjiang, has built a green landscaping business in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, after moving to the city in 2018, and has since taken her team's work to cultural tourism sites across the country.

Wang opened one of Linyi's earliest plant experience stores and, in 2018, won first prize at a national flower border competition in Suzhou with a horticultural work titled "Brilliant Planet," the only first prize from Shandong that year.

After graduating from university, Wang started a business with classmates in Xinjiang, converting one of the region's first batches of renovated abandoned greenhouses into a popular succulent garden. She came to Linyi in 2018 with that experience. Linyi is a well-known market and logistics city, and landscaping is a local advantage industry with established seedling cultivation and high-end bonsai wholesale, but the sector largely remained at the "wholesale plus e-commerce" level, leaving room to integrate plant ecology into urban production and living spaces.

In the winter of 2020, Wang decided to invest her savings in a second venture, bringing the concept of "green cultivation" to the city. She selected a quiet residence in the old municipal Party committee compound, an arts community formed by the meeting of old buildings and young businesses and known as Linyi's "798 arts district." In early spring 2021, her "Leaf Plants" store opened, along with the Lanshan Leaf Flower and Tree Gardening Center.

Wang pursued a "mixed" approach, partnering with an established nearby restaurant so the two businesses share space and customers: greenery extends into the dining area and the restaurant's aroma drifts into the plant store. The store went on to attract ceramics, woodworking and photography businesses, reviving the once-quiet arts district and turning it into a new cultural tourism destination in Linyi.

Wang's team has since expanded its work from home balcony and courtyard planting to Linyi's first boutique plant hotel, greenery displays in major commercial districts, indoor forests and water features in public urban spaces, and green scene creation for cultural tourism sites nationwide. In spring 2024, the Hongye Shiyan scenic area in Shandong selected her team to create a "Shiyan Immortal Village," which opened during the May Day holiday that year. In 2025, the team's first national project was the upgrade of the 600-year-old Yingtan ancient village scenic area in Xingtai, Hebei province, where it developed a "northern Miao village" concept. The site drew more than 14,000 visitors on its opening day in August 2025 and more than 300,000 in its first month.

The team has grown from one person to 14 university graduates, all from Linyi, and has trained five designers, four gardening assistants, three engineering assistants and social media specialists.

Editor：韩蒙蒙