“You have an extra day this year. How are you going to make it more valuable and useful?” asks Vinayak Garg, the chief gardener (also known as the founder) of Delhi-based Lazy Gardener.
The organisation started out eight months back, by providing a variety of plant food sticks that you can insert into the mud for healthier plants, “And at that time we started creating content on Instagram. We created videos on how to garden, talked to people and got them together on Instagram to discuss plants. Very soon we grew and within six months we had 50,000 followers,” says Garg. Lazygardener.in is nearing 100,000 followers on Instagram today. That is when Garg realised that a lot of people they were are attracting were those who are just starting to garden and get plants. They usually have one or two plants. “Which is why we started Million Gardeners as an initiative to inspire new people to take up planting,” says Garg.
The third event under the Million Gardeners initiative, is the Plant Parents’ Meet-Up in 13 cities across India including Chennai. Garg says, “It is all done on a volunteers’ basis by people who gathered together on Instagram. They started with volunteers in 50 cities."
He adds, “We have sent out kits and are training volunteers on these topics, so that anyone who comes is able to go back learning something new and useful.”
At the Delhi office of Lazy Gardener, the team has created a curriculum and put it together in cards created for the volunteers. They will also cover topics about light and watering, which “are the two most essential things people should learn about,” says Garg.
Under light, the discussion, Garg says, will mainly be about indoor plants, what kind of light requirement do different plants have and how to assess the light intensity within the house with respect to a window and artificial light.
“One of the reasons we see most people struggling with plants is because they think the solution to every problem is watering. Overwatering kills. So when to water and how much to water. Also the ways of watering that harm the plant. When you water from overhead, the leaves of certain plants can rot,” explains Garg.
Gardening, Garg believes, helps with well-being. “It is also the simplest and most actionable things one can do as the first step towards helping the environment and the climate.”
The Plant Parents’ Meet-Up will take place on February 29, between 10 am and 11.30 am at the Semmozhi Poonga Amphitheatre. The event is free of charge. To register, log on tohttps://tinyurl.com/
