Residential gardening burst onto the scene during a reality check during the pandemic. Top gardening trends of 2022 in Kerala
Over the past two years, Visvabharan NK, a retired DRDO scientist, has grown and nurtured a whopping 1000 saplings at his home in Kakkanad, Kochi. During the pandemic, he found time to build an orchid collection. “It is beautiful to look at the flowers; The bloom lasts two to three months,” he says.
Preeta S also found time to return to her hobby: gardening. Last year he not only managed to grow a clean lawn, but also managed to identify traditional plants, compost from kitchen waste, learn re-potting and pruning, and hone his gardening skills.
For Sunil Joseph, owner of Kochi’s St James’s Nursery, the time of the pandemic was “a boom for us”, as the number of new customers increased and sales picked up after March 2020. Sunil, who grows saplings in three farms near Kochi and retails them from the city, saw a 100% increase in sales.
“The last two years have given people time to go to their gardens and indulge in hobbies,” says Jacob Varghese, professor of botany at Bharat Mata College, Kochi, and author of books on horticulture. He says that people have taken refuge in nature.
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But there is another side to it too, says JM Jacob, Founder, Miniature Gardening Expertise Society of India. According to him, many horticultural trends have seen rise and fall in the last 22 months. While many may have made gains, others have suffered financial losses.
“The need for essential vegetables gave a fillip to kitchen gardening and the need for revenue attracted many people to start gardening as a part-time income source. Young students, working professionals and housewives took up gardening as a residential occupation. Encouraged by the immediate bloom and proliferation in plants, he invested the money and quickly took to online marketing, finding that there were too many players. It has been a bittersweet experience for many people,” he says.
According to Jacob, the extended lock down in the first phase resulted in shortage of plants and supplies in many horticulture nurseries. Due to the ban on international flights, new varieties are coming through gray channels such as smuggling. The second wave in 2021 saw a decline in several horticultural trends that emerged in 2020, particularly in the aquatic horticulture segment.
The challenge in 2022 will be to keep the business afloat and look for new ways of marketing. Jacobs cites the example of Landscape Services which began offering EMI-based balcony and terrace gardening services to attract more customers.
Here are the top trends for 2022 in Kerala:
Online Gardening Businesses & Services
This year will reduce online and offline sales margins, as thousands of gardening businesses and small hobbyists launch private online stores. Horticultural communities such as Kerala Garden Business Hub and Chhedi Vyakarkal have started trading and wholesale platforms.
Many multi-seller e-commerce gardening stores are emerging and many horticulturists are offering online workshops and consultations. Apart from popular YouTube channels, paid workshops are also organized on social media platforms. Many residential gardeners have also shifted to branded label sales concepts and offer gift coupons and vouchers. For example, Shayju P Salaam of Kannur launched a special mobile-based app for the sale of adenium with over 200 varieties.
‘Our Garden’ Concept
During this period a concept of ‘our garden’ emerged in which a group of like-minded gardeners share their garden space, or rent a suitable plot or premises for gardening. “A crowd-funded or community-funded group shares both the cost of purchasing new exotic plants and the knowledge,” says Jacob.
topiary
The year saw a fascination with the art of training perennial plants by cutting off their leaves and maintaining clearly defined geometric or fanciful forms. Though physicians are few, nurseries are importing customized orders. Justin Thomas currently has around 50 plants of various shapes and sizes in his nursery at Mooringur, Chalakudy. The design engineer, who worked in West Asia for two decades and returned to Kerala in 2017, says topiary is his hobby and passion.
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He started by making geometrically shaped caps with Malpighia, a small leafy shrub that is ideal for bonsai and topiary. he says that conocarpus, a multi-trunk mangrove species, is one of the cheapest in India. Justin creates shapes such as spheres, cones, lollipops and multi-headed forms. He is currently working on animal-shaped hats: a horse and an elephant. Another off-beat composition is the word ‘Welcome’.
“There’s no limit to the size and design anyone can create, especially with Malpighia,” says Justin. He adds that it’s an expensive hobby. Ball-shaped caps range from one foot to four feet in diameter, while cones are between four and seven feet. His work retails between ₹1500 to ₹25,000. More than hotels and public spaces, Justin finds people interested in this new garden practice.
indoor garden
“The indoor garden has moved from patios or balconies to rooms,” says Jacob Varghese, who finds interior designers using boxes full of indoor plants to separate different parts of a room into different spaces. “Even the newly formed home office has been given a green division,” he says. A popular area to plant in homes is under stairs and in areas with natural sunlight.
“Modular panel garden arrangements became popular in interiors and balconies during this time,” said Jacob, adding that today people change whole plants in a short amount of time due to the trend of social media showing photos and videos. Architects and interior decorators have replaced the earlier local nursery in handling balcony or outdoor landscaping.
Read also | Amid the pandemic, Indians are preparing their balconies for ‘joyful escape pods’
Also popular are 3D printed miniature garden figurines and pots, new die-cut molds of fiber garden pots. Sabin Thomas and Antony Raju manufacture these at their unit in Muvattupuzha. “It’s ornamental, durable, and suitable for indoor planting,” says Sabin, who retails to wholesalers. A three-inch pot costs ₹30 while an eight-inch pot costs ₹350. “These are new to the area but sadly they are replacing village pottery and handmade pottery,” says Jacob. Revolving trellis and tower rack planter shelves that rotate to replace plants or get sunlight are popular in balconies.
New varieties of water plants
“The trend of water plants evolved during the pandemic,” says Varghese.
Mary Sheba, who runs My Dreams Nursery in Puthencruz, has been flooded with orders of small plants such as water poppy, double-flowered arrowhead, Mexican swordtail, yellow water lily and lotus. She has over 75 varieties and sells them for anywhere between ₹100 to ₹1500. Mary entered the water plant section during the pandemic and found a proliferation of plants in just one year.
“Kerala climate is best for water plants,” she says, “Traditional water plants that require large pots and tubs are not necessary for these smaller varieties. Some of them can be grown in bowls. and can make attractive centerpieces.” While Mary supplies local nurseries, she is surprised by the increasing interest from individuals.
air purifying plants
After the first wave of COVID-19 when doctors stressed the importance of good ventilation and fresh air, hordes of air purifying plants gripped the world. After NASA recognized the snake plant (one of 20 on its list) as an air-purifying green, it became a rage. Prices went up and the ideal table-top dwarf variety sold for ₹300. “The tall green and yellow varieties are cheaper, but still more expensive than the earlier ones,” says Varghese. The genus, Sansevieria, comes in 22 varieties and removes pollutant gases from the air.
Other popular varieties are Peace Lily, Boston Fern, Money Plant, Spider Plant, Aloe and Lucky Bamboo. He explains, “These plants not only absorb carbon dioxide through the pores on the undersides of leaves but also pollutants such as xylene, toluene and benzene, which are emitted from wall paints and emulsions and candles.” In addition, indoor plants grow in low light densities and continue to manufacture food, thus releasing oxygen. According to NASA, a 100-square-foot room can purify the space. Requires four full-grown plants.
new grass for lawn
A new variety of grass for lawns has been introduced in the past two years. The most common were previously Mexican grass and hardy buffalo grass. Now, pearl grass, a new type of buffalo grass that grows and spreads rapidly, is in demand. Sona Shelley, a florist who grows and sells pearl grass from her garden in Perumbavoor, says, “Since it doesn’t grow well enough to be mowed, it requires little maintenance, making it an attractive option. Is.” “Pearl grasses are dark green and shiny and love shade.” Sona also grows another variety, called Mondo, which is a slow grower. Sona sells about 90 to 100 trays every two months at Rs 150 per tray, mainly to landscape artists.
wild country garden style
The wild country garden style, where the garden has more natural appeal with everything on ground soil and little in pots, also became popular. “It looks like a wild forest garden. Adherents of this retro style find modern gardening to be a mechanical display of plants in colorful pots, stacked like an array of schoolchildren in uniform,” says Jacob, who sees this return to nature as a possible fallout of the pandemic. I see.
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