During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976) Mao had people tearing out grass, pulling flowers, and decimating tress, more than anything because he didn’t like them, though he could mask this by labeling such things as being, “bourgeois”, which at the time meant it would be instantly shunned by those of his cult (i.e. practically the whole nation).
Of course a lot has changed since then, and the Chinese have had a few decades to reintroduce flora to the urban areas. However, the way they go about it is sometimes interesting. We recently had the Chinese National Holiday (like our 4th of July) and public and private sectors alike dress up their buildings to celebrate it in a splash of color. So to make the dreary gray of our campus steps more exciting, they brought in plants. However, the steps have no place for natural planting, so what they did on the steps and everywhere else around campus was put the flowers in nice arrangements, but left them in their pots! It really is quite a pragmatic approach, because as of two days ago they cleaned them all up, a task made much easier when all they have to do is literally scoop everything up, no worries about uprooting or spilling dirt everywhere. 
This type of landscaping is really the minimal show that you see; everywhere else they keep plants in the same pots they are bought in, but the scale and artistry increases dramatically. As you can see in this photo, a flora sculpture was created by a local radio station outside one of the larger parks in the city. The most impressive one that I have seen, and wished I could get a photo of had I not been in a taxi, was of a life size tree, and a larger-than-life girl picking an apple off of said tree… all made of potted flowers. Alas, the fall in Beijing is just about over and so every is cleaning up the vegetation before is completely loses color.
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