Visit to Dept of Horticulture & introduction of medicinal plants in KG

Working to prepare a garden from scratch is surely a lovely experience and am only a beginner in the field of gardening. So, the idea of visiting new nurseries, seed stores etc. are very inviting..

I have been greatly inspired by one blogger http://geekgardener.wordpress.com/ in his experiments with container gardening and inspired by his visit to Department of Horticulture, Hulimavu, I had made up my mind to make a visit there someday.

Finally I could make it there on May 20th (Took a day off from the work;) ).

I went there along with my mother, she is an avid plant lover (Being from the Adivasi Hinterland of Orissa has its effect), and in my heart I knew she would love to visit this place...

Department of Horticulture,Hulimavu is just few meters before the Meenakshi temple, beside the Cocunut Development Board, if one is approaching it from bannerghatta road. It's easy to miss it, as there are no big eye catching billboards or crowd, very unlike a lalbagh for example.

We made an registry entry with the security at the main entrance and he instructed us to drive down 0.5 kms down the road to the main office. Both sides of this driveway are chiku orchards and many a green houses.

I wanted to buy few seeds of few cultivars of lettuce. So, I went straight into the office and asked the officials there, for a list of available seed varieties, and he guided us to the notice board. To my amazement there were more than 200 varieties of seeds in the list, and i was hearing the names of most of them for the first time in my life.

I noted down the names of few cultivars of cherry tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and zuchinni. Most of the seed varities here are priced around Rs.5 per gm. That was really a welcome change, because by now I am used to packets of seeds from different nurseries like Nursery Men Co-operative Society in Lalbagh where they are almost heftily priced in comparison to the price here. Also in those nurseries one has no control over the quantity of seeds to buy. Mostly the packets have some x quantity in them and 90% of the seeds from these packets are of no use for a small kitchengardener like me.

Chandrakala, attends to seed purchase request at the DoH and normally, once the orders are placed, it takes half an hour for her to procure them from the seed store(clod store unit). We thought of using this time to just look around the place and that is when we came to know the actual treasure DoH has in store.

We came across one of those shaded enclosures where DoH has a collection of different varities of medicinal and aromatic plants. The collection is just awsome!! with over 40 varities of mdecinal plants available readily for purchase. We had no idea about the usefulness of so many varities of plants available there. Thankfully the attendant offered to help us with a pamplet. The pamplet clearly detailed the name and usage of different medicinal plants in both english and kannada. Overjoyed, we went on a shopping spree and here is a list of few of the plants we bought.

1. Insluin Plant - 2 leaves a day (Morning and Evening for 1 months helps control diabetes)
2. Aloe Vera -
3. Brahmi
4. Clove Basil
5. Camphor Basil
6. Chakramani (Multivitamin plant)
7. Mehendi
8. Mint
9. Balsam
10. Lemon Grass
11. Hipli (Long pepper ??)

Here is snapshot of all the plant's taking a break before they settle in their new home...

[caption id="attachment_48" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="All plants bought from DoH, Hulimavu"][/caption]

Apart from these medicinal plants we also bought
1. jasmine
2. Blood Flower
3. Sandalwood

And to my surprise each of the above plants are priced in the range of Rs. 3-6. That's unbelievable in city of B'lore.!!
With the shopping done, we happily headed home promising ourselves to return here more often.

In the meantime, here are few more pics from my garden.

[caption id="attachment_49" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Hibiscus"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_51" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Peas seedling transplanted into container from plastic glass"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_52" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Tomato seedlings"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_53" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Poi Saaga (Not sure of English name). Used in Oriya non-veg delicacies"][/caption]



[caption id="attachment_55" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="gladiolus bulbs have turned into these beautiful plants in just 15 days!!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_56" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The little papaya plant looks little settled now"][/caption]