Hyderabad: Garden growing turns into full time passion among youngsters

Hyderabad: As the growing concern about chemically induced food and health consciousness is driving people towards raising their own backyard gardens in homes and at top of the roofs in the city, more and more people are connecting themselves with Facebook and WhatsApp groups having passionate gardeners and experts as members as one stop platform to learn and emulate propagating rooftop gardens.

Among them some are even youngsters who have not only embraced nurturing nature but are inspiring others to emulate the same. One among them is Sai Charan, a 13-year-old, 9th class student from a hostel at Hanamkonda in Warangal district. The young emerging plant lover stirred a passion of raising a garden among fellow classmates and even won the heart of hostel authorities by sharing the idea. Inspired by the routine garden activities being posted by plant lovers in one of the famous city based group of terrace gardeners called the 'City of Terrace Gardens (CTG)-founded by Senior Supreme Court lawyer Srinivas Harkara, the young garden enthusiast mooted an idea of raising veggies in the hostel and shared it with fellow classmate.

Sai Charan, a student of Orbit E-Techno School, Yellapur village in Hanamkonda, even brought the idea to the notice of the hostel principal and got overwhelmed with the response. Moved by the passion of young garden lover, the principal Bhagavan Reddy, sympathetically considered his case and offered him to make use of 130 square yards of open space within the hostel premises as 'backyard garden' for growing green veggies. Without wasting time, Charan grew atleast 15 varieties of green leafy veggies and found taking utmost care of the garden to ensure a good yield.

"I am so happy to be a member of the terrace gardeners group called the 'City of Terrace Gardens (CTG)' founded by Srinivas Harkara, Senior Supreme Court Lawyer. The group has actually helped me generate a green idea of raising veggies within the hostel premises. Cherry on the top is that our principal too has responded sympathetically and gave us consent to raise leafy veggies in an open area in the hostel premises," elated Sai Charan.

A similar passion grew fonder in Phaneendra, a 13 years old boy from Pydibheemavaram village in Andhra Pradesh who too fervently follows the CTG group. Inspired by the garden lovers associated with the group, Phenendra, an 8th class old student too starts trying his hand on propagating green veggies at home.

Recalling the experience with the CTG, Phaneendra said, "I am fond of growing plants and have grown some veggies like tomato, chilli, okra, coriander, amaranth leaves (thotakura), mint and methi leaves (menthi kura) by my own. I even take care of plants which were raised by my grandmother such as hibiscus, roses, aloevera, kashiratnalu and betel leaf. I followed the advice and clarified my doubts, if any by raising them with the experts in the CTG group."