NICHE FLORA IN SHIMLA

FOLIAGE AND WILDFLOWERS 


CORNFLOWERS

BROMELIAD

 

BEGONIA IN GLASSHOUSE

SEDUM MORGANIANUM 

YARROW




SUMMER HILL 

MOSSY WALLS OF MANORVILLE MANSION 

ANNADALE


REX BEGONIA

 ROSETTE SUCCULENTS

 CACTUS AND SUCCULENTS

Summer mis-en-scene

The ber has lost its lustiness

yielded 
to taut, tart

aubergine jamun plum

****

The fruity aroma of cashew

smothers

woody scent of saptaparni

a heady cocktail

****

The bare bombax

sheds

blood red blooms and rosy starlings

silk cotton erupts

****

the cashew apple

steals

the roseate glow

of homebound sun

****

copperpod corsage

captures

sunbeams and sunbirds

showers molten gold

****

in the still afternoon air

nothing moves

the dry, fallen leaves rustle

to wind of cobra

****

the koel insists on cooing

wooing

till my heart melts

in the heat of Indian summer

Tall As An Oak

Today, I planted a sapling of Meru Oak in my garden. As my Kenyan odyssey inches towards the finishing line, I felt it would be fitting to give something back to this land – to its soil, sun and savannas – that nurtured my soul. Planting indigenous trees would be my enduring gesture of gratitude to its people who shared their stories with me and helped me evolve and grow. Meru Oak, one of the largest trees endemic to Kenya, was Wangari Maathai’s pet motif, as a symbol of strength and endurance, for any tree planting ceremony. Deforestation and over harvesting for timber has highly threatened it, which is also the reason why Mama Miti (Mother Tree, as Maathai was lovingly called in local lingo) chose to plant this species on every occasion.

I would have loved to plant the baobab - the African quintessence - too, but though the baobab is an indigenous species, it is not the one for Nairobi. Baobabs are not spread over Kenya indiscriminately, but found closer to the plains which experience relatively heavy rainfall. As you travel from Nairobi to Mombasa by road, you step into baobab country. On the outskirts of Mombasa these gargantuan entities stretch endlessly such that you are seemingly driving on a baobab boulevard. With ample breathing space and sparseness around, their girth and canopy spreads copiously, in keeping with their true nature. Just the other day, I came across a 100-year old baobab at the Nairobi Arboretum that would put a true-blue baobab to shame. Not suited to Nairobi’s elevation of nearly 5000 ft, this specimen was stunted and frail like a well-endowed woman shrunk in size as a result of crash dieting!

Time and again, Maathai emphasized the importance of indigenous trees for their capacity to regenerate and rejuvenate microhabitats and in inducing back birds that might have migrated. Plantation trees such as eucalyptus and acacia (the wattle of Australia and not the indigenous savanna species), conifers such as cypress and pine, majestic though they may be, play havoc with the immediate environment in ways that may not be instantly felt or understood.  Therefore, I chose the indigenous East African yellow-wood (Podocarpus falcatus), instead, as the other planting option. By virtue of its appearance, Podocarpus is a perfect substitute for the alien pine and is a viable alternative as a plantation tree. In Australia, this species is considered invasive, but in Kenya, its homeland, it is not an outcast and is, in fact, a great roosting place for birds.

The British with their incurable love of gardens and trees sought to recreate their homeland-highlands atmosphere in almost all nations they colonized, as also to swap species within the colonies. Thus, they sowed the seed of exotic plantations. So, whether you go to India or Kenya, whether you are sitting at the Bombay Gymkhana Club in Mumbai or the Mombasa Club in Mombasa, you see similar flora of Indian almonds and African tulips twig-by-bough jostling for space.

The African tulip (Spathodea campanulata) is truly a native beauty and my personal favourite for its enchanting blooms. Upturned orange-red bells crown the canopy and seen from a distance it appears as though the tree is aflame. Elspeth Huxley, the British author eulogized and immortalized this 'Flame of the forest' in her book, “The Flame Trees of Thika”. (Locally though, it is called the Nandi Flame, after the Nandi county of Kakamega region in Western Kenya.) Until now I had seen only the vermilion blooms, but recently, in Kenya, I came across mango-coloured blossoms (colour of ripe mango pulp), a mutation obtained from grafting, I am told. Our Embassy complex, like all colonial copycats, ironically, sports only the foreign jacaranda and frangipani, but not a single tulip tree, so I let the garden have it, finally.

Nairobi nurses several pockets of “urban forests” such as Karura forest and City Park, deserving of the epithet of “green city under the sun”. Majestic trees are an indispensable feature flanking the streets, and roadsides double as nurseries throughout the city. In the absence of buildings, shopping malls or other man-made structures, it was the trees that served as landmarks or milestones, in the days gone by. This back-to-basics approach still holds in Nairobi, if only in name. Thus, you have the kosher Muthaiga neighbourhood, Mutithi road, Mathare slums and Kamithi prison - localities and streets all named after trees!

Planting trees and tending to nature is an intrinsic ethos in this country which sired one of the world’s greatest environmentalists and inspirations on its soil, Wangari Maathai. Today, on Women’s Day, I pay my respects to one of the tallest women who walked the Earth - as tall as the Meru Oak.   

Meru Oak

On the occasion of Holi, enjoy the riot of colours in this album, "Holi more angana": http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.454565954530.245282.740459530&type=3&l=85b7c51cde

And some more splash of colours: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150371669624531.360652.740459530&type=3&l=cb1bd4991a

EARTH SONG

From fallow ground

raided by weeds

lying low, dormant

since eons; now

nursing a sip of dew

springs…

a sapling of viable ancestry

progeny of yesteryear

Wild dahlia, white

long buried and forgotten

prises its past

rears its head once again

simmering snowflakes or stars

kindling dreary landscape

declares…

the Womb of the Earth

is forever fertile.

Padmaja Parulkar 

On the occasion of World Water Day

Water wise - Dry Gardening

Today, I went on to a golf course with a golfer friend, a treat I have been promising myself – a non-golfer - for long. Having lived across a golf course in Wellington (in Nilgiris) and having seen avid, never-say-die golfers tee and putt, I have always been eager to witness the sport close quarters. The breathtaking beauty of the pines and cypresses, the tapestry of rolling grass cropped short, sprinklers tending the grass lovingly and the serene atmosphere instantly transported me into meditation zone. But it also set me thinking that if all this ‘exotic’ beauty is at the cost of precious water resources that are running scarce for urban utility by every passing season, then is it worth it?

Many leafy localities of Nairobi are reeling under water shortage and have to depend on water tankers for their daily requirements – for drinking and even, bathing. Swank houses in kosher Karen and Langata boast of sprawling gardens and their cry for water, at times, seems more poignant then that of their human denizens. How can one tend lawns and nurse blooms under the equatorial sun, with rain months away, even delayed further sometimes? I have no idea how gardens survive and flourish under the constraining circumstances, but one person has found a solution, which he has implemented in his five acres. That Barry Cameron is a civil engineer and has worked in the area of urban water supply for four decades in several countries of Africa is no mere coincidence. Chairman of Kenya Horticultural Society, Barry is a votary of “Dry Gardening” and his garden relies on rain water and does away with extraneous watering!

Barry inherited his five-acre plot in Tigoni – 20 kms North of Nairobi – with its eucalyptus plantations and coffee bushes and his wife had planted hundreds of fuchsias in myriad colours along with seasonals in the patio patch. Barry’s own forays into gardening began only after her death, 20 years ago, and as he grappled with the problem of maintenance in the view of water scarcity in drier months, he realized that drastic measures were called for.

In, what I think, was a bold move Barry removed the fuchsias (“they are water thirsty”) that graced his garden and planted succulents and drought-resistant plants in rockeries and pockets around the house. Today, sedums and sempervivums carpet the ground in vivid colours. Not many know but sedums can vie with the best of seasonals in floral competition. And that the fleshy leaves of sempervivum – resembling curled flower-heads – when flushed rosette in hot sun can look astounding. In India, often people confuse succulents with cactus which are predominantly desert plants that sport spikes and thorns and which are rather stark. Succulents, on the other hand, come in mind-boggling variety and look very attractive even as container plants.  Barry has innovatively transformed a satellite dish into a container.

 

Resilient shrubs of plumbago and tecoma line the edges of the succulent bed, with the added advantage of attracting bees and butterflies. These greens survive, nay flower with gay abandon, in the absence of water, but Barry litters the bed with leaf mulch obtained from his forest floor to prevent excessive loss of water from the soil.  

Altering the forest, itself, was a different ballgame. He knew that the water-guzzler eucalyptus had to go to give way to indigenous trees. He picked up seeds of native trees from his jaunts in the forests and planted them on his plot. By trial and error, quick-growing trees started jostling for space, the ones that survived and grew tall formed the canopy, others sprouted in its shade, yet others got weeded out. Barry was witnessing an ecological sere develop in front of his eyes and soon the plantations were taking shape of indigenous woods.

Today, he has hundreds of Meru oaks, a threatened species much-valued for its hardwood, “his children’s pension plan”, as he calls it humorously.  Then there is the endangered Prunus Africana whose fruits draw birds and which provides a good nesting site. The flat-topped Acacia (abysinnica) and the ubiquitous Nandi flame are there in good measure, too. That indigenous trees help restore the ecological balance of a habitat is testified by the arrival of Colobus monkeys and greater variety of birds and butterflies in his garden over the years.

Visual beauty, too, can be redefined if we are willing to look deeper. A natural forest may not have the majesty of manicured greens and conifers; it may a look a wee rundown, but that is what keeps the earth in good shape. It is a little like the junk food we eat; we cannot imagine life without deep-fried goodies and snacks, though we know that they are calorie-laden and nutrition-deficient. It is only when we are beleaguered with lifestyle diseases that we mend our ways, by when it is too late. We who are used to seeing classic lines of lawns and streamlined flower beds may take a while to adjust our tastes to a wayward natural garden that tells its own story. But walking through the labyrinthine pathways of Barry’s home-forest brought to my mind settings, from books I read as a child, of summer holidays, brook-side picnics and adventure.

Often we hear it being said that, “future wars will be fought over waters” and we all know that water as a commodity is getting scarce, but we do not have the courage to go the Barry-way. We had better let nature take its own course, with a little tweaking, maybe, if we wish to conserve Water.

Heaven in a Wild Flower

http://www.harmonyindia.org/hportal/VirtualPageView.jsp?page_id=12831

The Good Earth

In Mumbai, we of the high-rise apartments buy soil by the kilos that have more pebbles than loam; we shell out money too, for saplings, which in a place like Wellington grow wild and free! If natural resources be wealth, then the people of metros such as Mumbai are truly deprived. Their material wealth cannot buy them the joy of a green world or the good earth of countryside.

Everybody loves greenery and wants their fair share of it. Then, if you are in an apartment in a city, you convert your balcony into a greenhouse or terrace garden with potted plants. Why, even in chawls or match-box flats of cities, the balcony ledges are dangerously laced with pots sporting the common “money plant” (pothos ivy is money plant only in India and the origin of the local nomenclature is quite a mystery)  or another regular, the syngonium – hanging like a Damocles sword over unsuspecting passers by! One mention in the newspapers was truly remarkable. A tenant in a lower middle-class locality with little resources but lots of ideas had made a veritable garden, ingenuously, by placing potted tin cans and plastic packs one on top of another, like a pack of cards, to make a mountain of verdure. An innovative live installation, if there was any. Plants, you see, can find their own place in the sun!

Container gardening is fun, no doubt. Every morning you can monitor the milestones the arrival of a new shoot, leaf or bud. You pinch, prune, pluck and goad the plant into taking shape of your design. Or if you so desire, just let it grow wild, a mini forest in your verandah. The plant growth is controlled, literally, under your thumb. You can even go a step further like this bureaucrat who loved trees, but who lived in a flat in a polluted suburb of Mumbai with little space for a garden. He made his plants his trees. He took up bonsai. Bonsai is a not just stunting plant development; it is a fine art not unlike painting or writing. It is not just splashing of colours or stringing together of words; there is a method, a technique to it, and above all, there is the consideration of aesthetics. 

Gardening, as a hobby or an art form, is one of a kind. Plants are a wealth that actually multiplies even as it divides. Where can you find such a miracle that by chipping away the parent tree or by making “cuttings” you generate more offsprings? And the parent tree is none the less for it; on the contrary, it helps the tree flourish further. No asset on this earth can compare in richness to these greenbacks!

Some enterprising people have cashed on exactly this attribute of plants to make money. A “plant boutique” in South Mumbai called Crimson Fern peddles the common variety of houseplants such as dracaenas, coleus, cacti, crotons, and fittonias, albeit with a difference. The containers that house them are its USP. Striking porcelain pots, ceramic cups, odd-shaped mugs, urns, chalices, glass bowls, wicker baskets, bamboo hollows and cane trellises help create table-top masterpieces, great as gift items. Likewise, a place like Leebon Nursery in Wellington flourishes by hacking at its capital and compounding its interest!  This is the ultimate business idea, as far as I am concerned. (I know what I am going to do when I settle down in life.)

Balsams

But there is no joy as gardening in an open expanse of land, which a place like Wellington offers. Flowers and foliage, for which one may give an arm and a leg in the city, grow wild here. Rock ferns, bracken ferns and many other enchanting varieties of ferns abound here in the nooks and crannies of hillsides near wet streams. According to a local expert, the impatiens or balsams are endemic to this region and grow in the wild in the Western Sholas. In the College, I have witnessed garden nasturtiums discarded by gardeners growing on garbage heaps glowing with health. Its blood red, turmeric yellow and orange flowers are a reminder, a living testimony, of the resilience of plants. And yet, what can be said of man’s persistent efforts to suppress this overriding survival instinct of plants to the point of destroying ecosystems irrevocably?

We city folks have almost forgotten what it means for plants and trees to grow in the wild by natural pollination through birds and bees, wind and water, without interventional care and feeding. Though Wellington is not a representation of the quintessential Nilgiris Biosphere, it is an interesting crucible to study how ecosystems change –for better or for worse – when man interferes with the natural habitat.  

Black-eye susan growing wild 

Nasturtiums, invasive but useful. Flowers and leaves are edible and can be used in salads.