Remember these flowers? Orange-hued kanakambaram, December Poo that blooms in winter in exquisite shades of lavender and other colours; the conch-shaped sangu pushpam; the andhi mandarai or 4 o’clock flowers; paneer rose; adukku sembaruthi; the tiny nayuruvi that would stick to our socks as we wandered on the city’s streets; the white thumbai flower that grew on its own on every garden fence....
It is ironic that these native flowering plants that trigger our childhood memories have now become the stuff of nostalgia. They are now a rare sight in our city’s gardens, thanks to the fancy for exotic foreign plants.
“A new landscape culture has crept into the city, with a bizarre conviction that beautiful plants have to be exotic plants,” says landscapist Hariesh Krishnamoorthi. Consequently, a boring monotony pervades many of our gardens, with garden plants revolving around decorative palms, crotons, heliconiums, adeniums and the like.
“It’s a pity, because these beautiful native plants will grow easily in our soil and climate, without much effort,” says Kavitha Ramakrishnan, one of the few people in the city who grows kanakambaram on her terrace.
Strictly speaking, some of these plants that are now part of Tamil culture, actually arrived here from foreign shores.
The 4 o’clock flower or Mirabilis jalapa came to South India from Peru, for instance. But these plants have been with us for so long, have acclimatised so well, and have become so ingrained in our culture that they are now as good as ours. And it’s a pity that we don’t grow them anymore.
In another sense too, these native plants pack a colourful punch that no garden should miss. “Kanakambaram flowers the whole year around; December poo blooms in the winter months (November, December, January and February) and comes in yellow, light and dark pinks, white, and lavender. Besides saamandhi and marigold, December poo is the only colour in our region’s gardens for January and February. It’s nice to have a garden that is colourful through the year, and these traditional plants give us that option. The adukku sembaruthi and the molagai sembaruthi are hardy plants that last for years, while the Hawaiian hibiscus that most people now opt for dies out soon,” points out Hariesh. Sangu pushpam is a creeper and can be used to great effect too, with its white and inky blue blooms cascading over walls and fences.
These plants can be raised as potted plants or in small beds. Paneer rose and adukku sembaruthi are best grown from cuttings. Kanakambaram is grown from seeds. Seeds and cuttings of these plants are available at select nurseries on the ECR.
