Garden Anniversary

Today is Aadi amavasai -an auspicious day to start anything. Gardeners consider this a sacred day as it marks the start of the new planting season. For us, this day also marks our first anniversary in gardening at our home. I am so grateful that I decided to get involved in gardening and help my mom in composting. There are no words to explain the sense of satisfaction that you attain while doing the gardening chores..I thank God that the gardening blood runs in our family.

In Tamil, there is a wonderful saying "ஆடி பட்டம் தேடி விதை "- the entire month of Aadi is suitable to sow seeds especially the creeper varieties. This is because the plants mature by the time winter comes and the winter's cold and fog helps the plants in producing good and quality harvests. 

So in this Aadi, we have sowed seeds of Okra, Ridge guard, Snake guard, Amaranthus, Chillies, Turmeric and few more others. For lack of pictures of the sowing tasks, I will showcase something from the recent archive -- one of our proud additions in the ornamental dept. 

This amazing flowering plant is called Nandiyavattai in Tamil( Moonbeam flowers in English). The flowers are bright white in color with a silky texture and has multi layered petals. The flowers are said to have medicinal qualities, mainly in curing any eye related irritations and also they are an excellent choice as an offering to God while doing prayers. 

What a contrast the flowers present to the dark colored foliage!

We are now getting around a dozen flowers every now and then and there is atleast one flower every single day. Together with the saffron-ish hibiscus (which is also from the garden) they make a feast to the eyes.

 

My mom once mentioned that many say 'any flower garden(நந்தியாவனம்) will not be complete without நந்தியாவட்டை '. Luckily for us, this plant prospered in our garden from day 1 and started producing flowers within a short period. It is a perennial shrub producing flowers all through the year just like Hibiscus and so we are set for years to come I hope. Touchwood.