Hope and Colours at Puttenahalli Lake

In this season of colours, our lake bed may seem drab, devoid of water but for us at PNLIT, it is a sign of hope. The brown piles of drying Salvinia is the final leg of a battle we’ve been fighting since Aug. last year to remove the invasive fern Salvinia Molesta and to infuse new life into the lake. The way the BBMP’s JCB and the men are working, we are hopeful that the last of the Salvinia will be removed by the end of the week. THEN we can welcome the rain to fill up the lake.

In spite of our preoccupation with the lake bed, we did not miss the riot of colours on the embankment. Some of the trees we’d planted in July 2010 have begun flowering and how lovely they look! A selection of photos of trees that began flowering this year are attached. A few like the tall Markhamia Lutea have been showering yellow flowers on the walking track for a year or more. The Bougainvillea has been a blaze of scorching pink and violet while preventing miscreants from cutting through the fence.

We are now setting up a small garden within an enclosure behind the Gazebo. Very soon there’ll be a burst of colours here as well since most of these are flowering plants such as Hibiscus, Canna (both in two colours), Nerium, Euphorbia and others.

This is our floral thank you to our donors! We are using your donations not only for the trees or to set up the garden but also to effect many other changes at our lake. Please keep donating to PNLIT and avail of IT exemption under 80G.

 
Golden Laburnum


Crepe Flower


African Tulip

 
Tabebuia Argentia


Crepe Flower, Bougainvillea in the background


Garden enclosure


Garden plants

Pics: Usha Rajagopalan

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Similar Story

PM2.5 pollution: Why Bengaluru urgently needs hyperlocal air quality monitoring

High-density traffic corridors and industrial hubs cause PM2.5 pollution in localised hotspots of Bengaluru.

Hazy mornings with the air thickened by vehicular smoke during peak-hour traffic are synonymous with Bengaluru winters. The city may have lower PM2.5 levels overall when compared to other mega cities, but high-density traffic corridors and emissions in industrial hubs are causing localised pollution spikes. A November 2024 study by Respirer Living Sciences, analysing PM2.5 pollution levels across ten Indian cities, revealed this data. The study examined AQI information from 13 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring (CAAQM) sites in Bengaluru that recorded an average of 39 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) of PM2.5 air pollutants in November 2024. This is…

Similar Story

Mapping Bengaluru’s lake assets: A guide to sustainable urban water bodies

In Part II of our ongoing series on lake systems, we look at the 'assets' that make these complex ecosystems sustainable, and the role of each.

A lake is much more than a mere water body, it is a complex ecosystem. All those resources or features that make this ecosystem complete and sustainable can be considered lake assets. Assets are generally classified into core zone assets (ecological zone assets) and social zone assets (recreational zone assets). Each serves a set of distinct purposes, supporting the ecological, infrastructural and social functions of a lake system. Here is an overview of the kind of assets that come under each category and the role they play in the lake ecosystem: Core zone assets (Ecological zone assets) These assets are…