Lalbagh flower show is a visual treat

Lalbagh flower show is a visual treat

Staff Reporter

The exhibition is part of the Republic Day celebrations

—Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

Varying shades: A riot of colour at Lalbagh in Bangalore on Saturday.

BANGALORE: It’s that time of the year when people pay their biannual homage to Lalbagh which, amid a highly polluted and concrete jungle, stands tall as a refreshing testament to India’s Garden City.

Apart from being every photographer’s dream destination, the Lalbagh Republic Day flower show, organised by the Department of Horticulture, attracts visitors from all over the State.

The flower show, inaugurated on Saturday, features over a hundred varieties of winter flowering plants and annual plants, like the marigold, morning glory, sweet peas, celosia and poppy, among others.

B.S. Sridhar, a visitor, said that it is a golden opportunity to see so many colourful flowers under one roof. Not only was it pleasing to the eye, he said, it was a balm for the soul. “The flower show is a treat to those who are interested in gardening and I eagerly wait every year to buy the various plants on sale,” said Devi Menon, a homemaker.

A group of farmers called Kan Flora from Sirsi, Karnataka, has come with a colourful stock of over 25 varieties of orchids for sale. They have been attending the flower show for two years now. Sadanand Hegde, an orchidologist associated with the group, said: “The farmers benefit a lot from this show by learning new techniques and information regarding horticulture.”

A wide variety of vegetables are on display, apart from seeds and saplings of the flowering plants and vegetables.

The Horticulture Department has put up an exhibition on the ‘Role of horticulture food and nutrition security’.

The exhibition, through posters, depicts the crop diversity in Karnataka, the nutritional values of fruit and vegetable, kitchen garden and so on. A flower pattern made of seashells by the tsunami-affected people of Pulicat village, Tamil Nadu, was the special attraction of the day.