Say it with flowers

The Lalbagh flower show draws the crowds every year with its replicas of well-known monuments.

Areplica of Delhi’s famous Lotus Temple , made out of flowers, is the major attraction at the ongoing flower show in Lalbagh Garden. It is located in the centre of the Glass House, where the flower show is held twice every year on Republic Day and Independence Day. It is fashioned out of two lakh carnations, 75,000 white roses and tuberoses and over 10,000 ornamental leaves. “Our gardeners have put in hundreds of man hours for the last one month to make the temple,” says M Jagadeesh, secretary, Mysore Horticultural Society, which presents the flower show along with the state horticulture department, adding, “It required precision and care to execute the inner and outer petals of the Lotus Temple. We chose this monument because it is popular with people of different faiths.”

Another crowd-puller is a flower arrangement shaped like the wheel of Konark’s Sun Temple. Two corners of the Glass House are decorated with an abundance of flowers in the shape of Ganda Berunda, the mystical two-headed, three-eyed bird that represents Lord Vishnu in Mahabharata. One corner blends together various textures and hues of flowers like red and white salvias, marigolds and fire bush to take the form of a Linga, and the fourth aesthetically showcases a tiered dahlia arrangement.

Bright sunshine-coloured carnations mark imaginative representations of Fernhill Garden, Ooty, one of the participants at the flower show. And then there are the spectacular floral beds —298 varieties, in all, of plants, including orchids, roses, zinnia, nasturtiums, daisies, brachycome, cineraria, marigold, cacti, fuchsia, jasmine, dahlias and coxcomb.

Lalbagh Gardens, spread over 240 acres, traces its history to 1760 when it was the private garden of Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore. Tipu Sultan and, later, the English expanded it, getting plants and saplings from Cape Town, Mauritius, Turkey Tenerife, Persia, Kabul and other distant places. The Glass House was built in 1890, modelled after the Crystal Palace in London.

Meticulous planning makes the floral extravaganza at Lalbagh possible. Action begins nearly five months earlier, roses are pruned 45 days before the show, while flowering plants are nurtured in a separate section. “Last year, the flower show, which attracted 4.5 lakh to 5 lakh visitors, raked in Rs 90 lakh. This year, 6.5 lakh to 7 lakh people are expected,” says Jagadeesh. And despite the showers this year, they do not seem to have dampened the spirit of the hordes who are flocking Lalbagh. Adds Jagadeesh, “The income generated from the show is used to cultivate plants for the next show. The department spends Rs 35 lakh to Rs 40 lakh to conduct a flower show.”

In the past, the Lalbagh flower show has created scale models of the Gateway of India, the heritage site of Hampi and the Taj Mahal. And it’s not just the models, but also the blooming flower beds that begin right at the entrance and the pathways decked with flowering potted plants.

The Lalbagh flower show also encourages companies and individual homes to showcase their manicured gardens. The best takes home a prize. Since the Glass House cannot accommodate all participants, experts visit the site and judge the garden based on several criteria like size, flower quality, pruning and number of blooms per plant. This year, the show has drawn 1,800 companies and homes.

Some participants like Hindustan Aeronautics, BBMP (the civic administration body responsible for the infrastructure assets of the city) and Indo-American Hybrid Seeds (a seeds company based out of Bangalore) showcase their blooms at the Glass House regularly. The Lalbagh Flower Show is on till tomorrow.