Capital cuts down on holiday gardens for Tian'anmen

National Day visitors to Tian'anmen Square will see smaller and simpler flower gardens than in previous years.

Decorations for parterres, which are ornamental gardens arranged to form patterns, are usually an important part of preparations for the weeklong National Day holiday, which starts on Oct 1, and those featured at Tian'anmen Square are major tourist attractions.

This year, however, in a bid to implement the central leadership's guidelines on curbing extravagance, the city government will slash its spending on decorations, said Yang Zhihua, an official with the Beijing Bureau of Landscape and Forestry, on Wednesday.