The Tulip Talkies

But in the tony neighborhood that Ajay Aggarwal lives in,is a comfort pad built of potted glory. “It’s a good way to spend my time. The mornings are beautiful here,to just sit and relax,” he says. Among the spinach,broccoli,and chillies in this garden,three heads with droopy petals stand proud. The plant-lover here has managed an exotic feat – to grow Tulips successfully. It took him a long-winding patch of perseverant courtship. But he finally got an affirmative nod. Today,healthy,multi-hued bulbs of the flowers bloom happily in his house.

If anyone has tried to grow these ever elusive flowers then he or she would know that it isn’t exactly cakewalk. Small wonder that it took Aggarwal a good five-six years to see the first head of exotica plop out in his garden. “Well,some years of experimentation had to pass till I got it right. Some relative in London sends over a bunch of bulbs to me. I stash them away in a freezer for a few weeks before sowing them. Because of the weather that we have here,I have to be careful to keep them in a cool spot. Too much sun is not what these flowers want,” explains Aggarwal.

He has interestingly found out ways to innovate though. To keep the soil temperature evenly cool,Aggarwal regularly puts some ice cubes into the patch. “I have put out a mixed bunch of bulbs. So every time there is an outgrowth,it’s a different colour of bulb that props up. I guess every bulb has its own life-cycle,” he says. Around September is when the bulbs start coming. By the end of November,they are ready to face the world after their cold treatment. . Apart from the Tulips,Aggarwal also has a few pots of the ethereal Night-blooming cereus or the Brahma Kamal that flowers once a year. “I just got a flower from a friend and put it into the soil. And it grew!”

Aggarwal and his wife have made it an annual tradition of gifting their friends and family plants every Diwali. “We have even started maintaining an excel sheet for it,tracking who got which plant last time. So that we don’t repeat the gifts!” laughs Aggarwal. One character missing in this green story is the fertiliser. He says,“I have solid faith in manure. I have a good compost patch and I gather a lot of neem leaves to put into the pots. I pretty much make my own plants,mostly through branch cuttings and not even seeds. My family says that I talk to my plants. You see,it takes more than just good soil to get good plants.”