It's not the usual season to plant flowers, but Neha Bhatt tells you how to green up the home or office.
Here’s some good news: not everything exotic need be expensive. Now, if you are looking for ways to spruce up your living space without spending a fortune, we suggest you go green. No, not a garden-variety green, but the choicest, most ornamental kind. Even your neighbourhood nursery, let alone large-scale cultivation facilities, is now innovating — and there is plenty of choice on the platter for you to redo any open space in your home or at work. What’s most practical about redoing your garden or backyard, porch or balcony in green are the cost options you have — there’s plenty that’s dirt-cheap, and there is plenty that is expensive — it’s up to you how much you’re willing to shell out.
In full bloom
Keeping in mind that spring will soon be followed by hot summer, one normally tries to avoid seeding flowers at this time. A variety of them are seeded in October. However, sunflowers and Zinnia elegans are still options, for they bloom well in summer. Stalks (small flowers in a soothing shade of lavender and pink) can be found at the Sunder Nursery at Nizamuddin in Delhi, at Rs 25 per pot, or go in for the tall, willowy lupins in purple, at the same price. They are easily available in pots and seeds at most local nurseries.
Among the more exotic varieties, you don’t have to rule out anthuriums or orchids, which can otherwise be difficult to maintain under changing weather conditions. Horticulture experts at Mody Exotica, a large-scale cultivation facility, offer to redecorate any open space you can afford, and turn it into a terrace garden. This facility, based in Guhagar in the Konkan region and operating out of Mumbai, offers varieties of cut, pot and potted anthurium plants, and also orchids, using the latest equipment and technology.
Their experts will plant anthuriums or orchids, or both, in your private garden, meticulously designing the space with a translucent UV-resistant polycarbonate sheet cover, not to mention automated water and climate-control systems, to ensure that the flowers will be in bloom throughout the year. Plus, the garden will be regularly monitored by their team, so you have little to worry about. A 30 ft by 20 ft terrace garden will cost you close to Rs 2.5 lakh for anthuriums. The high tag is a result of the water and climate control systems that need to be installed. Orchids are slightly cheaper to acquire: such a garden will cost you Rs 5,000 per sq m.
Making bonsai
An avid gardener, and teacher by profession, Rattan Obhrai proudly says, she has won many prizes for her bonsai variety. “It takes years to make your own bonsai, and it’s hard work,” she admits. She spends 15 minutes in the morning talking to her plants and over an hour in the evening with the gardener. Obhrai’s work was exhibited at the Defence Colony Flower Show in Delhi last year.
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“Some of my bonsai plants are 20 years old. Basically, to make bonsai one needs to plant them in a shallow tray and keep cutting their main root once a year during March or in the monsoon months. The older they get, the thicker their trunk.”
In Delhi, her best buys have been at the Garden of Five Senses, where she picked up some beautiful cacti and succulents. She also regularly visits Rajdhani Nursery in Jorbagh and Kamal Nursery in Khan Market. Now, bonsais can range in price from Rs 1,000-20,000 and above, while potted plants that look like bonsai, such as lavender (around Rs 100 per pot) and adenium or “desert rose” (Rs 150 per pot) are a cheaper buy.
Landscaping options
Once your rare varieties are bought, how best can you place them around your home? Landscape consultant Rangalakshmi, based in Bangalore, says it takes more to understand why you are buying what. If you are looking at colourful varieties, she recommends bird of paradise, anthuriums and orchids. In smaller garden plants, benjamina or starlight make for good options.
“What plant you choose depends on the kind of space you have, and the other elements that are on the same ground. For example, you will need to take into account the other plants around. If it’s for the interiors (though there absolutely must be some direct sunlight), then the decor of the room matters. Then you need to consider the size of the plant. If you are buying bonsai, those need to be kept in front of the taller, bigger greens,” says Rangalakshmi.
In her home garden, she nurses 1,100-odd pot plants, including Israeli oranges and orchids and a wide range of medicinal, ornamental and aromatic plants, many extremely rare. She recommends creepers for wide spaces, adding that while they may not be exactly exotic, they come cheap (less than Rs 10 for six or seven inches of a creeper) but still look good.
If you are picking out exotic varieties, a little bit of landscaping will help accentuate the plants. “If your collection will be placed in the balcony, a wall with a mural will go very well in the background. Using patterned tiles in the background is a great way to showcase a bonsai. If you are landscaping a lawn, a waterfall (falling on rocks or fibreglass) will add to the ambience. A well-landscaped medium-sized garden is not ruinously expensive: it will cost you Rs 30,000, and up.