The Gardener

Garden updates in brief: yesterday by evening I decided that two of my cucumbers had not survived the transplant, so I pulled them up and started some more cucumber seeds in their place. One appears to be ok, the other in critical condition. I also sowed some more herb seeds, as apparently rosemary is ridiculously hard to start from seed, and repotted the other sad geranium. I am considering repotting the chrysanthemums as the leaves seem to be quite dry. Damn that clay soil.

Another thing I picked up on my outing to Oxford University Press was this gem of a book: The Gardener: Horticulture in Pakistan. It's written by Abdul Karim Khan, who founded the Horticultural Society of Pakistan in 1948. I came across a lovely interview with him that appeared in Dawn a few years ago, in which he explains his love for gardening: 

"We are after all the children of Adam and Eve, who were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. All our life we strive to do good in this world in the hope of reaching that garden. I have only decided to grow flowery gardens in this world also."

The book is fairly straightforward, beginning with a foundational yet detailed chapter of basic plant biology and gardening principles. The remainder of the book is divided into sections based on type of plant (flowering plants, shrubs, orchids, trees, etc.) with technical information about a wide variety of species, and then a chapter on lawns ("the heart and soul of the garden") sections on garden planning, plant diseases, pests, etc., and a month-by-month calendar. It's very much organized like an encyclopedia, but Khan's thoroughness and care shine through the entries. Take for example his scathing opinion on bonsai: 

"I personally feel that it is torturous for a plant to be stunted, turned rickety, abnormal and retarded to please the human eye. To achieve this it is undernourished, tied with wire to stop the circulation of food in order to famish the leaves; the branches are pruned to control its growth at a whimsical height, and the roots are pruned to minimise the intake of food and to enable the use of shallow containers to control the root spread." (315) 

If this isn't love for plants, I don't know what is. I'm not sure I can ever look at bonsai trees the same way again!

Adorable tiny tree or freakish casualty of human whimsicality?

Particularly useful to me is the focus on plants that are grown in Pakistan, as many of these are unfamiliar to me. Upon the first casual leafing through of the book I was able to identify the red-flowered vine outside my window that has stumped me since I got here. I had decided to call it a Chinese honeysuckle (Quisqualis indica) even though I had my doubts about it. But based on the descriptions in The Gardener it's clear that this vine is a Clerodendrum splendens (aka glory tree, flaming glorybower). Where applicable, the "local" (Urdu) names of the plants are listed, extremely helpful to someone like me who, for instance, can never tell the different species of jasmine apart (juhi? motiya? chambeli?), or can never get anyone to give me a definitive answer on what that tree is that's been covered with huge red flowers for the past month (it's a silk cotton tree! Bombax ceiba or, in Urdu, simbal).

Lucky flip to this page helped me identify my vine!

So anyway, this book was well worth the 900 or so rupees. And by the author's standards, it's already fulfilling it's purpose; he writes in the introduction:

"I shall deem this book a great success, and consider my labour well spent, if it can help to make our homes more colourful, our cities more beautiful, our environment free of pollution, and Pakistan more green, and fragrant."