Gardens, Flowers, Fragrances and Colours – Part 2

I had initially planned to keep the terrace garden simple – just a few small plants that have flowers that bloom with a sweet fragrance. My oldest and ‘bestest’ friend a tree hugger herself, took me to several nurseries and helped me select the plants I planted shefali, beli, gondhoraj, kathgolap, kamini, korobi, hasnahena, and dolon champa, – all our native flowers, that bloom with wonderful sweet scented flowers. We added rokto joba, alamonda, and rongon to add a splash of colour. We also added a line of bamboo shrubs to provide a privacy screen from the house across the street. Minhas, the ever practical architect, added drainage and damp proofing to the terrace, and designed a perfect covered spot where we could sit and enjoy our garden in sunshine and rain.

This terrace garden represented a home coming; it meant that I had decided to hang up my gypsy shoes and settle down back home after almost 30 years of travelling in the service of my country as a diplomat, from Italy to Thailand to India and finally to Nepal. Since 2015 after Abba passed away and my son Tanmoy had left once more for UK to pusue his PhD in Music, I had mostly been living alone; Minhas visited frequently, but his primary residence was not Kathmandu, and while I enjoyed my solitude and independence, it was also hard because of my handicap. My severely compromised eyesight meant that my independence was restricted and I was getting tired of constantly asking for help. So, when the opportunity arose in 2019, I asked my Ministry to bring me back to the headquarters and so after much delay due to COVID-19 restrictions, I was finally back in Dhaka in August 2020. 

Which brings me back to my terrace – a lot of the inspiration for this terrace came from my garden in Kathmandu. It was not very large; when I first moved into the rented property in May 2013 (it was a beautiful three-storey Tibetan style house designed by a Swiss architect), the garden was largely neglected. There were no flowers, except for some big flowering and fruit trees – a lovely magnolia, a beautiful chamelia (which surprised me by suddenly busting into deep pink flowers in the middle of winter), some orchids, and tiger lilies, and a few hydrangeas hiding here and there. I half threated and half bullied our gardeners and planted gorgeous flowers in the spring – phlox, dianthus, geraniums, chrysanthemums, and a few more of which I do not know the name. We also planted dahlias (of course!), marigolds, and petunias – flowers of vibrant colours, brightening up my home. It was very organic and most of the flowers found their own place within the garden without my having to plan too much. I got the biggest surprise around the last weeks of October when the air began to chill in Kathmandu and I suddenly saw a dry vine, which had twisted around a tall tree, climbed and overgrown and spilled all over the second floor terrace, turned out to be a poinsettia, and burst into flaming red leaves. I had never imagined that poinsettias could grow so tall and all winter, the red leaves added a touch of warmth to the cold winter days. 

The weather in Kathmandu with its sharp dry cold is perfectly suited for brightly coloured flowers and my garden did not disappoint – even during the long monsoon months we managed to grow zinnias, very hardy flowers in beautiful colours (I am still puzzled why no one in Nepal has taken up commercial floriculture for export. I was amazed to learn that Nepal imports, of all things, marigolds from India!). So many of my house guests said that they felt a peace and calm in the house which they did not feel anywhere else. 

Unfortunately, Abba, who was so interested in gardening, did not have the opportunity to enjoy this lovely blooming garden. The Alzheimer’s that was eating away his memories was also stealing from him the ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and he largely remained oblivious to the garden. It was so sad …… I have always seen Abba plant flowers at every opportunity, even in the tiny very small balcony of our apartment in Via Cassia in Rome, Abba bought planters and every spring we used to buy tiny pots of petunias and put them out in the balcony. In Delhi, our garden was a tiny handkerchief sized piece of land, and even here he planted a bougainvillea (which initially died but miraculously revived), and the other regular flowers. Our landlord, a typical old-school retired military colonel, was delighted; apparently his previous tenant had grown vegetables specially tows of leafy greens and had ruined the small lawn. 

I remember, long ago, when we had moved to the newly built Railway officer’s quarters in Shahjahanpur in 1977, the surroundings were still vacant, since the Railway authorities were still trying to get possession of the land from the original owners from whom they had acquired the land when the railway station had been shifted to Kamalapur in the 60s, and were still developing it. Abba had planted a long line of mahogany trees from the Outer Circular Road leading upto the boundary of the building where a flat had been allotted to us. He also quickly planned a garden keeping space for flowers and a separate space for vegetables since residents of the other flats wanted vegetable gardens. I think some of our most beautiful flowers had grown while we lived there from 1977 to 1986 – apart from the regular ones, Abba planted paper daisies, holly hogs, and snap dragons, and dopatee. I have been looking for these flowers in various nurseries in Dhaka but I have not been able to find these flowers. I would love to add them to my terrace garden every winter.