Everything Is Fair in Love and Gardening

I do not know when the gardening-bug bit me first. As far as i remember it was in Patna that i purchased 2 indoor plants and placed them in the drawing room. The wife never agrees with me on whatever i do but this time there was perfect harmony. Of course, she did not say it in so many words and in fact objected to it, which, i read perfectly, was half-hearted (Her half-hearted 'no' in fact meant 'yes'.) . I caught her secretly sitting near the plants and admiring them. Her eyes said that she simply loved them but she did not show it.

The open and unused terrace of the building provided me with a perfect area which i used for placing and growing plants. Then i saw a banyan-sapling outside the house. I playfully brought it and planted it in a pot. The plant generously responded to the love and care that i showered on it. When it grew into a considerable height with a substantially thick trunk, i cut it into two and placed the upper portion in another pot. To my utter delight, it responded and grew into a lovely second plant! That was in the late 80's. These 2 plants are still with me and i show them off to my friends and visitors as bonsai although i have not read any book or article on the subject. I do it in my own way and trim the plants just before the spring season. Now there are 5 such banyan plants and one peepal plant gloriously sitting in pots in my garden.

Since then i have had a fairly good collection of potted plants which i used to carry with me each time i moved almost all over India on transfers demanded by my job. It was a heart-rending experience to see some plants damaged during transit.

After retirement, i have settled in my old house built 27 years ago.

I have flowering plants in the the small area in front and 2 flowering creepers on the iron arcs fixed over the 2 gates. In the back-yard, i have planted some small as well as big flowering plants and a few flowering trees.

In the further back-yard, I have a kitchen-garden.

Wherever i find some open patch with potential for holding a plant, i go ahead in my own small way, in the cause of a greener and less warm Earth.

To add to my collection of flowering plants, i buy, beg, borrow and steal wherever i find an exotic variety. Yes, steal and smuggle! I buy saplings from nurseries; i also collect saplings, cuttings and bulbs of exotic plants from the wild; i beg my friends and relatives to give these. Occasionally, my friends and relatives present me with plants as gifts on my and their birthdays and on other special occasions. My daughters and sons-in-law bring flowering plants and other greens from abroad. And on one occasion, when i knew that these methods will not work, and it was a particularly attractive plant, i adopted the last method, persuading myself that taking a cutting is almost harmless and will not cause much loss either to the plant or to the owner. But the ever vigilant daughter discovered the act in no time and this was followed by a candid confession and a prompt forgiveness. :) Isn't everything fair in love and war, and gardening?

Whenever i visit some place, I look for plants to carry. I have plants from Patna, Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Andamans, Coimbatore, Ooty and Singapore and from different places here. Like the photos in my albums, these plants carry sweet memories. Each such plant has a tale to tell. And whenever i sit near any one of these, each story unfolds itself bringing its own nostalgia!

Plants have been my first love. (Of course, after the wife and the daughters!) Plants are my greatest friends. Whenever I feel a little depressed or worried, I go and sit near a plant. And the depression or worry bothering me simply evaporates away instantly!!!

When i first set up the kitchen-garden, i had a not very good experience. The first pumpkin, whose growth i was following keenly, was stolen! I was crest-fallen. I suspected some labourers staying nearby. To prevent further such incidents, i adopted Gandhigiri. The next crops were tomatoes which were in a substantially large quantity. After keeping some for us, i distributed the tomatoes among the suspects by adopting the strategy, 'Steal One and Get One Free'. After that, stealing has stopped. Now, when vegetables grow in my garden, they come and ask for it and i readily share these with them. And of course, i share my vegetables with my other neighbors. My second pumpkin weighed 9.5 kg!

Dishes prepared from vegetables grown in your own garden taste really great! :))))))) I do not use any chemical fertiliser. I recycle the waste materials from the garden and the kitchen, turn them into compost and use these as organic manure.

More on greening the Earth in my next post. :)))))))))))))))))