Seeds as gifts and souvenirs!
Soon after marriage, shilpa (needs no mention – my wife) and
I went to Andaman by a package tour. Package tours are almost like ATM
machines. They give us specific instructions and one can only do those. One of
the days, as part of the package, the cab driver took us to the shopping
streets. We didn’t find particularly interesting stuff with some utility along
with beauty. We didn’t buy anything. However, we wanted to take back some thing
as souvenir.
One of the beaches where we visited offered us something
better, for free. There were a lot of assorted seeds of many types, carried
ashore by the altruistic waves doing a kind favor to the mother plants
producing buoyant seeds. We collected 30 seeds of some 8-9 varieties. 2 of them
just looked like green sticks of 1 foot each. I couldn’t imagine what they
were. We sowed all of them and these 2 sticks horizontally on ground. In some
time, many sprouted. Regarding the peculiar looking sticks, from the narrower
side the sprout came out, roots from the opposite end. The stick like seeds
literally stood upright during germination, gradually from their horizontal
placement and turned out to be ‘mangroves’!. Others included pongamia and some
unknowns. With these 30 seeds started our ‘forest/medicinal/general’ nursery
officially (not to ignore my mother’s gardening and small scale nurserying).
After 6 years to our joy, one of these 30 seedlings, now
planted, has flowered this time - a pongamia (honge).
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Pongamia bearing flowers |
[One un-identified plant from this Andaman trip died this
time due to a fire mishap from the nearby transformer. It had well settled on
ground was picking up speed].
Since then, I have gone on many trips, to – Ladakh,
TadiyandamoL, Kolar, Bangalore (Infosys, where I got Sterculia foetida), Kadur,
Sirsi, teerthahaLLi – to name a few. I can still remember the plants I have got
from each of these places in their original form – as cuttings, seeds or
plucked seedlings – and their current stature of the ones that survived. The
more we collect, the higher is a chance to have a souvenir that we can ‘look up
to’ (literally) after a few years.
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muchcheeru tree grown from a seedling collected on the way to kadoor, where we went for a marriage |
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A brazilian tree (arara nut tree) grown from seed at home, seed from Lalbagh bangalore |
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Sterculia foetida, janglee badam - seed from Infosys, Bangalore. Gives tasty edible nuts |
Let’s think different and original. Why not some people go
for ‘green souvenirs’ approach as well? We have a guarantee that no two of them
will be the same. I recommend this for your next trip, in this planting season!
Seeds and plants are not the only ones as gifts or souvenirs. It could be home stitched clothes, homemade sweets and many more, limited only by giver's imagination.
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A part of vrukshaalaya planted 5 years ago, now taking shape of a forest |
Vasantha Kaje.
ಸರಿಯಾದ ವಿಚಾರ, ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟ ವಿವರಣೆ. ನಾವು ಅದೇ ಅಂಡಮಾನಿನ ಚಿಡಿಯಾ ಟಾಪಿನಿಂದ ದೊಡ್ಡ ಜಾತಿಯ ಇರಿಪ್ಪಿನ ಬೀಜ ತಂದು, ಇಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮೆರಡೂ `ಕಾಡು'ಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಸರಿಸಿದ್ದೆವು ಫಲಿತಾಂಶ ಮಾತ್ರ ತಿಳಿದಿಲ್ಲ :-( (ಅಶೋಕವನದಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಕುವ ಕುರಿತು "ವಿದೇಶೀ" ಎಂದೇ ನಿರೇನ್ ಜೈನ್ ಭಿನ್ನಮತ ಸೂಚಿಸಿದ್ದರು)
ReplyDeleteNice idea, helps lots of things and also brings great memories for a long long time
ReplyDeleteಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿದೆ! ಒಂದೆರಡು ವಾರ/ತಿಂಗಳು ಬರೀ ಸಸಿ/ಬೀಜಗಳನ್ನು ಹುಡುಕುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಪ್ರತೀವರ್ಷ ಇಡಬೇಕು !!
ReplyDeletegood idea, let me too join
DeleteHow wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThank you
Delete