Chenshan Quarry Garden & Peak: 60 m Below, 71 m Above

The circuit starts at Gate 2 (2号门) on the garden's east side, the main ticket gate, with the reported ¥60 entry (current, confirm on-site) and the buses and lots at the gate. Just inside, the Exhibition Greenhouses (展览温室) anchor the first stop: three signature houses, 热带花果馆 (tropical flowers and fruit), 沙生植物馆 (desert succulents) and 珍奇植物馆 (rare plants), under the curved glass roofs that are the garden's architectural headline. The houses are the gateway to the garden's scale: Shanghai's second botanical garden, opened April 2010 and reported at ~200+ ha (confirm on-site), with 1,500+ East China native species (chinanews). The greenhouse floors absorb the family crowds' first stop, and the path west quickly thins.

Photo suggestion: The greenhouse glass catches the morning light, the garden's opening frame.

The park's reason to exist is a story of rebirth: the Quarry Garden (矿坑花园) is a reclaimed limestone quarry, a working 采石场 until the 2000s, remade with the garden's opening into what CRI called a 'contemporary Xanadu', and described as East China's only quarry garden. The reported numbers are the drama: ~60 m deep, with a 60 m cliff, a waterfall, a mirror lake and a floating bridge, plus the cliff-side descending boardwalk (崖壁下行栈道) that takes you from the rim to the waterline. The terraces and boardwalk steps are the route's most atmospheric stretch, and its only cautionary one, with wet rock underfoot and the cliff close at hand (access, confirm on-site). Non-slip shoes are the non-negotiable item.

Caution: The quarry is wet, the descent boardwalk and the cliff terraces stay slippery long after rain; take the steps slowly and keep off the rocks.

From the quarry's deep shade the route climbs to the day's only real slope: the summit of Chenshan (辰山) at 71.4 m, one of Songjiang's few genuine hills outside Sheshan, and the justification for this page's Moderate rating. The climb is short and honest, roughly 20 minutes of steps through the hill's woodland, and the reward is the summit bell (撞钟祈福, the ritual ring for luck) and the panorama: the garden's green geometry below, the quarry's rim to the west, Sheshan's forested humps (佘山) on the skyline. The summit is the circuit's hinge, high point between the quarry low and the flat south gardens, and on clear days the best viewpoint in the park.

Photo suggestion: The summit bell against the Sheshan skyline, the classic summit frame.

The descent from the summit's south side drops into the flat, quiet half of the circuit: the Aquatic Plant Garden (水生植物园), the lotus and water-lily collection that peaks in summer when the quarry's shade gives way to open ponds of bloom. The stop is the change of character the route needs, from geology and height back to horticulture, and the flat lawns here are the pram-and-picnic territory of the garden. The wetland beds grade into the wider south gardens, and the crowds that packed the greenhouses are a distant memory. This is also where the drawn line (~3.6 km of real AMap walking data for the whole circuit) runs closest to the gardens' true paths.

The Herb Garden (本草园) is the circuit's quietest stop, reported 600+ medicinal plants (count, confirm on-site) laid out as the garden's apothecary cabinet, from the familiar mint and peony to the roots and barks of traditional pharmacy. The herb garden has no map POI in AMap, it appears in the text and the name pills only, not as a marker, per this site's honesty convention, and the routing anchor here is the East China Plant Zone (华东植物区) beside it, which carries the drawn line toward the gate. The south gardens are where the moderate circuit turns easy again: flat, shaded, and empty enough on weekday mornings for the gardeners to outnumber the visitors.

Caution: The herb garden is fragrance, not food, none of the beds are for picking, and some species are toxic to touch.

The circuit closes at Gate 1 (1号门) on the south-west, the standard exit, with the visitor centre and the gate's lots and bus stops at hand. The honesty note belongs here: the drawn line is ~3.6 km of real AMap walking data, while the reported ~5–6 km circuit includes the summit climb and the meandering paths; field-walk the difference before claiming a figure. Gate 3 (3号门) on the west is the prose alternative if the herb gardens have run long. From the gate, the return journey reverses the arrival, bus to 洞泾站 or the car, and the day closes with the Songjiang hills on one side and the flat plain on the other.

Photo suggestion: Gate 1's approach path in late light, the circuit's closing frame.