Mousumi Chakravarty is one busy lady. She is a music teacher, social worker, runs an activity centre, a boutique, and still finds time to grow a stellar garden. She has seasonal flowers like Dahlias and Petunias, vegetables like Cabbage and Broccoli, foliage like Ferns and Coleus and talks of wanting to plant tall trees in road dividers now. No wonder when her sons come to town, they joke that they need to take appointments to meet their mother!
I grew up in Sodepur in a household that grew lots of plants. I remember simply plucking, washing and eating some carrots from the yard if hungry. So when I started my terrace garden in 2015, I poured my heart into it.
Besides flowers and foliage, I’ve had great success with vegetables like Capsicum, Brinjal, Tomato and Sheem. There was bumper harvest of Cabbage, Cauliflower and Broccoli recently but it got devoured by rats. There’s also Strawberry and Betel leaf (Paan) and now I’m preparing for summer flowers like Zinnia, Nayantara, Bel and Jui.
Multi-coloured foliage under Chakravarty's care
I love collecting rare plants. The most common Rangan flower is the red one so I have kept peach, pink, light blue — all colours but red. Aparajita too, instead of the common blue one, I have the mauve variety. Among Roses, I have the Black Prince and have ordered a blue Rose online that I can’t wait to see. There’s also a dainty green flower called First Love.
I have 150 pots on the terrace, 80 in the driveway but am gradually making the shift to grow-bags. These are bags that do the same job but aren’t heavy like earthen pots. Still, I have some beautiful pots with Radha Krishna motifs painted on them and am growing Marigolds in them now.
My husband is quite an artist and though he isn’t involved in gardening per se, helps me design the look of the garden. We had put up a lovely tent on the terrace but it got mangled during cyclone Amphan. We plan to build another semi-shaded area up there for the plants that cannot stand harsh sunlight. We also have light and fan connection there for get-togethers.
There’s a Bel and Mango tree in the backyard that bear enough fruits to share with the whole neighbourhood. My neighbours and friends love to come over when seasonal flowers are in bloom, and they all have their favourite corners for selfies with the flowers.
As told to Brinda Sarkar