The garden is far older than its present keeper. That is because it has been passed down as a gift to Adhyayan Moulik by his late grandfather Dilip Kumar Moulik. Moulik Senior would travel to all parts of the city to bring home saplings of his choice. After retirement, he would sit on the the first floor veranda and discuss its upkeep with the gardeners, recalls the Class VI student.
“At present my brother and I look after the plants. Everyday we water them. We also have a part-time gardener who comes in to work with us. The garden has a variety of plants such as jackfruit, papaya, bel, guava and sthal padma. There are also several varieties of rose — red, pink and white. Apart from the tulsi mancha, there are hibiscus plants strewn at regular intervals on flower beds.
At one point, the passage along the garden had 10-12 tulsi shrubs. Sometimes, they sprung up on their own. We consider this a good omen!
“Every few weeks the garden is spruced up by the gardener. We get a variety of saplings from nearby nurseries. The jackfruit tree in the garden is very productive during this time of the year. At times we have so many jackfruits that we distribute them among our family members. The fruit is very sweet and quite a delicacy for us.“
We also have an aloe vera plant which was gifted to my mother by her friend. I like watering the plants and looking after them. The soil in our garden is very fertile. The plants are green throughout the year. I plan to start planting vegetables this winter, especially because we mostly have flowers.“
Apart from guava and jackfruit, we really don’t have any vegetables. We also have some potted plants on the terrace. But most of them have grown and so we planted them in the soil along the driveway.
“We use a lot of natural fertilisers such as vegetable peels, fruit peels, etc. Apart from spring, the garden looks beautiful in autumn. That is when all the dry leaves fall off the plants and cover our veranda and driveway. It looks like a brown path. The cement cannot be seen at all.”