Planting Native Trees This Monsoon

Experience from visiting Gandhinagar Govt. Nursery — Van Chetana, last year suggests you got to plan picking up all the saplings long before actual rains arrive. And so I have begun planning early this year.

This here is the pond and my land right next to it, both yellow and green patches. And I’m planning now to plant this with trees I research below.

Lagerstroemia indica

I’ve seen this one in my own area in Wadala, Mumbai where I live and every summer this tree bursts into a canopy of this lavander. Only upon research I found this is the state flower of Maharashtra. — Tamhan.

The tree is of NativeOrigin to India but considered absolute garden beauty.

As my wife and I drove to our farm a couple of weeks back , the Baroda Amdavad expressway has a whole stretch of these in the evening sun forming an avenue. This tree is a must in the courtyard of a farm house we’re building.

Imagine this

I’m also choosing this tree for its ability to withstanding Indian summer, unfertile dry soil and it’s blooming season that starts from march and goes on till june. I’m likely to look for a variant `Speciosa` and will try to make a cultivar of this for smaller height.

Cassia Fistula

The other color that I needed around was yellow and the here again I’d seen this tree at Five Gardens near me — Cassia fistula or Indian Laburnum popular as golden shower , the state flow of Kerala, of NativeOrigin to India and called aragvadha or disease killer with several medicinal uses. The picture below should explain why I need this yellow beauty.

Palash Butea — or Indian Dhak

The next color I need around us is Saffron. And which other plant than my old Palash or Kesudo — its Kesariya or flaming forest during dry season provides such bright backdrop to the dried and withering hedge of Indian summer