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Shikul Bhattacharji tends to her plants. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha |
Almost all of Shikul Bhattacharji’s interests are intertwined with plants. She likes writing and plants are her favourite subject, she likes Rabindrasangeet and so has researched on the various plants Tagore has written about. She also likes quizzing and wants to conduct quizes on plants so children get to learn from them. Her passion for plants has been so deep that she pursued MSc in botany and now uses the knowledge from her syllabus in her garden.
My favourite plant under my care is the Night Queen. I had got the plant from Arunachal Pradesh three years ago and its flowers bloomed for the first time in September 2011. But as the name suggests the blooms lasted only for one night. When the petals began opening up at around 8pm, I rang up my friends and called them over. We spent the night in the balcony watching the seven white flowers bloom to their full glory and then wither by dawn.
I am more fond of flowers than fruits and vegetables and grow Roses, Dahlias, Chrysanthemums and Marigolds. Salt Lake’s soil is best suited for Hibiscus and Roses but the pollution, even if less than in Calcutta proper, is bad enough to affect plants. The leaves of the Night Queens growing in Arunachal Pradesh are of much deeper shades of green than the ones growing in my balcony and the primary reason is pollution.
I also grow some radish, babratti and coriander leaves. I don’t grow potatoes anymore but once our plant bore enough potatoes to last us a year. We got tired of giving them away to neighbours.
Combining my knowledge of trees and of the township, I am currently writing a book on the flowering trees of Salt Lake.
As told to Brinda Sarkar
If you have a garden you are proud of and tend to yourself, send your contact number to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or call 2260-0115 after 3pm or email to saltlake@abpmail.com |
