New year delight: Karnataka garden in Ooty to open on Jan 8

Cauvery waters may be a bone of contention between the twin south Indian states, but flowers are set to bridge hearts in Tamil Nadu's Ooty hills where a garden developed by the Karnataka government is set to open early January.
Spread over 38 acres in the Fern Hill area of the picturesque hill station, the 'Karnataka Siri Horticulture Garden' is expected to become a major tourism attraction, top officials said.
"We are inaugurating the new garden in Ooty on January 8. A few top ministers and senior officials from both the states are slated to attend the opening ceremony.
"Ooty gets about 25 lakh visitors per year and we are expecting that 80 per cent of those tourists will visit our garden too," Joint Director of the Karnataka Horticulture Department, M Jagadeesh, told PTI.

He said about 75 different kinds of flowers have been planted in the new garden and special potted plants are being sent to Ooty for the inauguration ceremony.
"It will have a rose garden, and flowers like Camellia, Azalea, Begonia. Since it is a temperate climate on Ooty, plants like agapanthus, Calla lily, germanium, red hot poker will sooth the eyes of visitors," Jagadeesh said.

Bengaluru-based architect and author Yashaswini Sharma said the people may find it unusual that a Karnataka government's garden falls in the geographical region of Ooty, but there is a story behind it.
"This part of the Fern Hill was used for horticultural research before independence when the area came under the Mysore royal family. After independence, it went to the Karnataka government," she said.

Jagadeesh said the area was chosen for researching on potato tuber production originally, but the "pest attack" left the area in disuse for several decades.
Noted botanist and landscape architect Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel, who served as a superintendent of Lalbagh Gardens in Bengaluru from 1908 to early 1930s, was even sent there for the research, he said.
"Since it lay unused for a long time, the horticulture department decided to develop a garden there as Ooty is a tourism destination. Work is still going on but 60 per cent of the garden is ready. Work on the rest of the area will be carried out in phases," Jagadesh said.

The area also neighbours the iconic Fern Hill Palace, part of a heritage resort, owned by the erstwhile Mysore royal family.
"It is said, the British put Krumbiegel under house arrest for some time during the Second World War, as he was a German. And, he was kept in Fern Hill Palace. So, Ooty has some Karnataka connect," said Sharma.