A herbal garden to refresh your mind
Not too far from the bustle of traffic on Lawson’s Road thrives a collection of over 350 bushes, shrubs and trees representing the rich horticultural heritage of southern India.
Set close to the entrance of the Sri Ayyappa Temple, the herbal garden is an effort by the volunteers of the Tiruchi Sri Ayyappa Sangam to raise awareness of the need to preserve and cherish native vegetation.
“We wanted to make people think about an eco-friendly lifestyle that is in tune with nature, while they came for worship at the temple,” a senior volunteer told The Hindu . “The garden refreshes the mind and body of the devotees.”
Inaugurated in 2015, the park originally was used to grow ‘thulasi’ (holy basil) and ‘karpuravalli’ (country borage) for the temple. The collection has grown to a more systematised arrangement of ‘27 star trees’ (auspicious trees compatible with star signs according to the Hindu astrological chart), and a host of other plants that find mention in ancient literary and medicinal texts of the south.
The garden is bounded by signboards engraved with sayings of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and is looked after by a team of 15 volunteers, who prefer not to be identified.
“We meet every Sunday from 8.30 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. and share the gardening tasks. One permanent employee takes care of watering the plants. To minimise stress on the plants in this hot weather, we have introduced a sprinkler system recently,” said a volunteer.
The garden’s compost patch takes care of the manure requirements for growing plants, which have been kept in large cement containers. The common and botanical names of nearly all the vegetation have been provided.
The team has reused 3000 empty plastic containers of ghee (used in temple rites) to grow thulasi and karupuravalli, and arranged them to decoratively demarcate the different planting areas.
Recently, 300 karpurvalli plants were donated to the corporation’s electric crematorium by the gardening team. The temple holds an annual exhibition of its plants and offers free saplings to visitors on select occasions.
With some very rare plants like ‘Brahma Kamalam’ (night blooming Cereus) and ‘Itthi’ (Ficus tinctoria) growing here, the garden, like most public green spaces in the city, is at times vandalised by visitors, say the volunteers.
“We have deliberately left some of the pots unnamed to hamper plant thieves, but genuine researchers are always welcome to get more information from us,” said one of the caretakers.
A digital catalogue of the plants is being prepared by the gardening team, which could prove useful for students of botanical sciences.
“We started out with 2 plants, and are now aiming at 1000 in our collection. The younger generation should know how to live with greenery, and appreciate the knowledge of our elders,” said another volunteer.
source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper...le18587639.ece
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