The school garden project was started in 2014 and finished in 2016, as an environmental education component of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden’s (XTBG) Zero Extinction project. XTBG helped design and build the garden throughout the two years. Afterwards, XTBG has also been assisting in organizing the school’s environmental education activities in the school garden, and in getting students involved in a project that aims to reforest the Holy Hill, which is culturally significant to the Dai People, a local ethnic group.

More than 400 species of orchids grow in Yunnan, fully a third of all of China's varieties. Over half of those growing South of the Clouds are considered rare or endangered. They are most abundant within the province's southern tropical rainforests, but some of the more robust types thrive in the mountainous microclimates of the north. Researchers at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) have identified what they believe are the most endangered flowers and are now selectively cultivating them in Jinghong greenhouses.