Eastern gardens grow West

"Flowers have been on Earth longer than humans. It's interesting to imagine how they think about us, who appeared on the planet much later," he says about his reaction after first reading the book.

With the question haunting his mind, Huang and his TV crew met Zhou Xiaolin, a self-made horticulturist who has leased a valley covering 800,000 square meters to plant various species of flowers on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan province.

"The nights in the valley are tranquil but also full of vitality. One night in a cabin inside Zhou's garden, I shaped the draft of this documentary," Huang says.

He had planned to collect interesting stories about flowers that have bridged the East and West by tracing the plants' native areas in China and their presence in foreign lands.

Huang moved with his family to Paris for several months, where he read a lot of books and scientific journals, and watched documentaries.

He also discovered that most British gardens had Chinese plants.