January 2019 – THE CHERRY CLUB

Tulsi, a plant so commonly seen and worshiped in almost every household in India is quite an easy plant to grow.
With proper care, which is effortless, these semi-hardy perennials can thrive for years.

But, why is it that most home owners struggle growing them?
If you are buying or bartering new seedlings every 6-8 months, seeing it to turn hardy and leafless within a short span of time, you need to learn how to take care of the plant.

The first and most important reason your plants aren’t growing well could be over watering. Overwatering causes these plants to wilt, the leaves turn pale and ultimately turns yellow before falling, since they are religiously watered every day and during every season in India, it is important to allow good drainage for the plant.

Another common problem could be soil caking. Hard soil doesn’t let the roots penetrate, could retain too much water which in turn makes the plant suffer.

Compost/Manure is an important requirement for the plant which is often neglected. Red Soil, while it does contain certain nutrients, isn’t organically rich and IS NOT everlasting. Tulsi plants do seek support from the growing medium but dumping in just Red soil won’t be of any help at all. Make sure to mix roughly equal proportions of Sand, Soil and Compost while planting Tulsi seedlings.

While Holy Basil can thrive in partial shade, it grows well in full sun areas. Make sure that it gets al least 4-5 hours of good sunlight.

All we’d ask of the Tulsi plant, is for it to grow bushier with lots of healthy leaves. Nobody likes the plant to be tall and woody with just a pair f leaves at the tips of each branch. In order for your Tulsi plants to perform as per your requirements, it is essential for you to be aware of the plant growth and behavior.
The plant matures once they grow flowers and seeds, this means it gets ready to promote new plant growth, drops it’s seeds and starts retiring. Consider this as the plants making space for the new saplings (it’s offspring).

Make sure that you trim these flower buds as early as they are forming to promote good leafy growth. If you are intending to grow a wider, bushier plant instead of a woody tall one, pinch the new growth of leaves when they are forming 6-8 pairs of leaves.
Regularly remove old and dried leaves, this helps the plant concentrate it’s nutrition on new leaves and branches.

Our grand parents often practiced pinching of fresh leaves and dropping them in the holy water of the copper vessel on the altar, drinking the herb infused water after worship as prasadam. This practice not only benefited us as the has antioxidants, helps relieve stress and immune stimulating properties but also took care of the pruning needs of the plant. You can consider bringing these practices back in your daily routine to get benefited.

Other means of harvesting these plants are to simply trim the branches and leaves of the plant using a pair of garden scissors once the plant reaches a height of 12- 15 inches, dry them in the sun until the leaves are crisp. These leaves can then crumbled and stored for long term usage.

Holy Basil is generally immune to pests, provided that it is growing in a healthy environment.
Growing in poor conditions might infect the plant with Aphids, Mealy Bugs and other Soft scaled insects. Spraying an insecticide made of a combination of a spoon of cooking oil and a spoon of dish washing liquid in one litre water is a good solution to drive the pests away.

With our extended stay at electronic city, we learnt about the close knitted circles of people here and it wasn’t surprising when we were referred by one of our previous clients to Mr and Mrs. Likitha for their Front yard Garden renovation.

We had in fact seen the house multiple times in passing, given that it is located at the entrance of a major street crossing.
The meeting with Mrs. Likitha prompted us to diagnosing their set of problems with their garden.

The Problems

The garden was primarily taken care of by their House servant, though the plants were in good health and were tended to with good care, the garden lacked structure. Multiple varieties of plants were planted all over the place and it was certainly an unwelcoming sight being the Front yard of the house.

The garden needed lot of sorting and everyone in the household loved the feel of lawn, were terribly missing it in their garden space.

We also figured that they liked being seated outdoors for relaxation, meetings usually took place in the Front space of the house which were rather frequent since they were one of the well known families in the neighborhood.

The vegetable garden patch along the retaining back wall needed minor construction to define layouts and maximize yields. The soil throughout the garden had only one variety of manure for years and needed enrichment.

A storage room at the back end of the entrance was a view they despised and needed some attention.

The Planning

We worked out a plan to first redistribute the existing plants into other parts of the garden, many of them to be moved mainly to the backyard.

A seating space added with a backrest planter box was planned, the planter box took care of the planting needs of the garden as well as being a backrest, served it’s purpose as a relaxed bench.

It also was planned to be at least 4 ft high as to hide the ugly wall of the storage house.

Wooden planks with drooping and colorful plants were planned on the wall to further accentuate the wall. We chose Bamboo to add feature to the whole area with an objective of keeping a natural feel. The roofing extension of the storage space was planned to be hidden with Bamboo screening.

The entrance to this garden space had to be defined and we planned for planter boxes to be constructed with wide bricks which can also act as additional seating space if required.

The area between the seating space and the entrance to the garden was marked as lawn area as decided previously during our initial discussions, we also planned on using stepping stones between the lawn to have access to all the areas of the garden space.

Construction
Lawn Laying
Planting

The Execution –

This project was executed with client’s laborers as opposed to our usual way of working where in, every aspect of the process is taken care of, by us. They had laborers regularly working for them with their own buildings and we agreed to only provide consultation, designing and supervision during the execution – co ordinating with their laborers.

With a week’s job of repotting of existing plants, prepping up of the soil, masonry at the vegetable garden patch as well as Front yard, visiting multiple nurseries for the selection and purchases of plants, we were finally ready to bring the garden alive.

The coming week was dedicated to planting – We worked together with the laborers and our clients too joined hands in planting, this was a great experience to their son just at the age Five (5).

Several other additions were made during the process, like addition of Clay pots for their Balconies, a bamboo lattice for creeper varieties in the vegetable patch, addition of a century old unused stone wet grinder (a hand implement) as a centre piece in the garden.

This family has lived in this locality for generations and we heard
lots of stories of how urban development took over the place from a silent village to bustling “Electronic city” within a few years. Their home was filled with centuries old wood and other antique pieces preserved neatly.