Experimenting with plants
By Satish Narula

DIEFFENBACHIA, dracaena, crotons, ferns, palms etc and you have nothing new in your garden. Don’t you get tired of seeing such flora, not only in your own garden but also wherever you go — to a friend, a hotel or any other private or public place. Let us do something that is different.

It is not true that exotic plants do not grow properly. They do. Most people feel that hydrangea fails. However, it is doing extremely well at a home garden in Sector 9. Anthurium and fuchsia are performing extremely well at my residence in Sector 21, clianthus (seasonal) again does well in Chandigarh. Then there are dwarf acalypha with red margins, various sedums that can be grown both in pots and basket bromeliades that give excellent, almost exotic blooms, various begonias of varying colours, spots, foliage and blooms, butterfly with boomerang leaves of a coffee colour and orchids with excellent long lasting blooms.

The climate at Chandigarh is by and large plant friendly. Plants with varying climatic requirements, from temperate to tropical and subtropical can be seen at the residence of people who have learnt to grow these using scientific methods or simply by hit and trial.

Those experimenting with plants ultimately conclude that various species can be grown by providing ‘near suitable climate. Growing plants under the cool shade of thick shaded trees, polyhouses, thatch houses or even green, black or white nylon net houses gives best results. Such like structures could be provided with overhead sprinklers that work even on first-floor-tank pressure. The plants are seen to respond well to such arrangements. One can use such sprinklers for half-an-hour twice a day to create the desired humidity and cooling effect.

It is like rain for the plants. The foliage also gets washed. The indoor display of plants is amazing and pots can be changed frequently. It is under these conditions that varied type of flora grow best.

The light intensity under such nets is reduced to 25 to 50 or 75 per cent, which corresponds to the actual amount that is available to most of these ornamental indoor plants when they grow wild in the woods, under the canopy of tall trees.

Another advantage of overhead sprinklers is that there is conservation of water and you can also single-handedly look after more pots and not depend on the mali.

This feature was published on September 12, 1999