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How Bengaluru's traditional gardens have adapted to a busy city landscape
Summary
Bengaluru's gardens have transformed over time with traditional South Indian vegetable gardens giving way to balcony, hotel and terrace gardens with exotic varieties
Spring has arrived in Bengaluru and flowers are everywhere—on trees, in parks, in flower markets, in nurseries, at traffic junctions, at wedding venues in different colours, shapes, sizes and fragrances.
This is no longer the garden city I grew up in. Roads, multi-storeyed buildings, apartment complexes and concrete infrastructures have gobbled up private land. But miraculously, the gardens have survived. They live on in different spaces—they have flown up into terraces and balconies. They have spread out in corporate and apartment complex gardens. Hotels have landscaped gardens and so does the airport. Cubbon Park and Lalbagh have nurtured their old flowering trees, which have come from different parts of the earth, and created special gardens for flowering plants. Lalbagh has two flower shows a year, which attract huge crowds.
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Bengaluru with its hill station-like climate and fertile soil has always been conducive to gardening. And with changing times, gardening patterns too have changed. In traditional South Indian home gardens, flowers were not the main focus. They grew in between vegetable gardens and fruit trees and were specifically meant for puja and for adorning the hair. The flowers that were cultivated then were usually native species. The reigning queen has always been the jasmine or mallige which grows even today in the surviving gardens of Bengaluru. Crossandra (kanakambara) and champaca (sampige) continue to be cultivated mostly in nurseries. The varieties of the ubiquitous mallige like Mysore mallige, jaaaji and multi-ringed jasmine, grow in pots in terrace gardens.
Rashmi Attavar, who manages the 59-year-old nursery Indam: Indo-American Hybrid Seeds with her brother Arthur Santosh, says that while home gardens might have changed, people’s interest in gardening and knowledge of plants has increased. Thanks to YouTube videos and the easy availability of gardening equipment online, more people are taking up gardening, she says. Since the gardens are now small and compact, they are easier to handle and can be maintained without gardeners. “Besides, people have discovered gardening is therapeutic. Just to sit among the green plants and tend them can be very calming," she says. “They enjoy watching the plants grow and the buds turn into blooms."
Like many Bengaluru nurseries, this one is on the outskirts of the city. The old nurseries once located near JP Nagar and Devanahalli have moved further out as they needed space and the land they once occupied was bought up by builders but the nursery business seems to be thriving.
Gardens have always changed with the times. When the British established their cantonment here and families moved in, they started cultivating gardens that reminded them of their home and flower beds with multicoloured foreign flowers became the fashion. Home gardeners were replaced by malis who learnt to prune, graft and fertilize plants. They learnt about seasonals and annuals and the carefully nurtured gardens became show pieces.
Flowering plants like the rose and hibiscus have always been popular garden varieties. The famous ‘paneer’ rose, now become a rarity, once bloomed prolifically spreading it’s perfume through home gardens. Those scented roses have all but disappeared as hybrid and grafted roses which are showy and more long lasting occupy centrestage. The humble chilli hibiscus too has been overshadowed by hibiscus blooms of different colours and sizes.
However, the most colourful painting of the city’s skyline is its flowering trees, which were carefully chosen and planted by creative and visionary gardeners over the years. Unlike the present-day landscapers whose work is restricted to designated areas, these trees were planted when the whole city was their easel. The golden and pink tabebuia, purple jacaranda, red gul mohur and yellow laburnum, take turns to paint the skyline even as the city becomes more urbanized, and they bear silent witness to the enduring romance of Bengaluru and its flowers.
Gita Aravamudan is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru, whose books include ISRO: A Personal History, Disappearing Daughters: The Tragedy of Female Foeticide and Baby Makers: The Story Of Indian Surrogacy.
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Gita Aravamudan is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru, whose books include ISRO: A Personal History, Disappearing Daughters: The Tragedy of Female Foeticide and Baby Makers: The Story Of Indian Surrogacy.
Also read: The long, slow journey of Isro's women scientists
