Bonding Over Gardening At Puttenahalli Lake

We have been inviting you to bring your family along for “weekend gardening” at the lake. Some of the volunteers this past weekend did just that! 

 
Our regular volunteers Mithilesh and Chandrika, a young couple from 24th Main came with the former’s mother and sister. Balakrishnan and his 10 year old son Girish; Regu and youngster Sanjay from Brigade Millennium, Shubha, son Sharad and daughter Ashraya from South City, Nagalakshmi and nephew Gautham from Puttenahalli joined other individual volunteers and together did a lot of work at the lake last Saturday and Sunday. 
 
The tone was set on Saturday early morning with a little girl and her father,  visitors to the lake, sitting on a bench and watching Chandrika at work outside the Security Cabin. Chandrika called the five year old over and taught her the basics – which end of the cutting must go under the ground and how to press the soil around the new plant, etc. The child was delighted and wanted to join her new tutor and other volunteers but they were headed to the trickier place within the inner grill. 
 
Volunteers both
 
 
The rain may be sparse in our part of the city but the drizzle is enough for the weeds to grow lush. The Ixoras, Tecomas, Plumbagos and Murayas planted within the inner grill are completely swamped by weeds. In just over an hour, however, a number of them were freed and given their rightful places in the sun. See the before and after pix below.

Before clean-up              After clean-up
Guidance from mother-in-law
 
 
On Day Two the location shifted to the garden near the Gazebo. Once again there was no mistaking the strengthening of family ties. Shubha taught 7 year old Ashraya how to pluck out the weed along with the root. Her son Sharad was  busy plying the wheelbarrow loaded with Parthenium which he had helped to uproot. 
 
Mother and daughter
 
 
Sharad, carting the waste
 
Girish a 10 year old who visits his aunt Nagalakshmi every weekend was watching her closely as she showed him how to clear the soil around the base of a plant and raise a small ridge to retain water. It turned out that her family once had a nursery at Jayanagar 4th Block. She has a wealth of native knowledge about the medicinal properties of several plants that she was happy to share with us as much as with her nephew.

 
Gautham and his aunt
 
 
And to think that we had been worried about both our gardeners taking a fortnight off at the same time!

 

Leave a Reply

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

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Similar Story

Garudachar palya: The “hot spot” in Whitefield’s IT Hub

Examining the heat island effect in densely built-up Garudachar Palya ward in Whitefield’s IT Hub, which also has limited tree cover.

Garudachar Palya is part of Mahadevapura constituency, with an area of 6.5 sq km, which includes four revenue villages — Garudachar Palya, Hoodi, Seegehalli, and Nallurahalli. These villages have stayed mostly the same, while the city has expanded around them with more organised development from the BDA. This mismatch has led to issues like narrow village lanes becoming crowded with traffic, as they’re now used as shortcuts to bypass main roads. Looking at population growth, between 2011 and 2024, the ward has seen an estimated increase of 62.24%. This rapid growth adds to the existing strain on infrastructure. Ward no…

Similar Story

Saving Dwarka Forest: Citizens approach apex court to protect forest land near Delhi airport

Delhi’s Dwarka Forest has seen brazen destruction thanks to a railway redevelopment project. A recent SC stay order has raised hopes.

According to a recent World Bank report, India presently accounts for a meagre 1.8% of the global forest cover. Even more concerning is the fact that an enormous ‘46,759 acres of forest-land have been sanctioned for mining’ across the country, over the course of the last five years, by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) itself. According to many ace climate scientists and researchers, our planet has already hit “the tipping point”. In this backdrop, the people’s struggle to save Dwarka Forest, one of the last remaining natural forest lands in a choking capital city, is a…