Abstract

Horticulture, a term under which I include cultivation of fruits and vegetables as well as ornamental flowering and foliage trees and shrubs as well as flower gardening, is as old in India as the people themselves. Our ancestors, the Aryans of the Vedic times, were great lovers of nature. The very name they gave to flowers- Sumanasa that which pleases the mind reveals their aesthetic sensibility. In the Buddhist sculptures at Sanchi and Bharhut we find a variety of ornamental trees sculptured in stone. Some of these sculptures are as old as two thousand years. The favourite trees of the Buddhist monks were the peepul (Ficus religiosa), the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha obtained enlightenment, the Asoka (Saraca indica) the beautiful tree which bears clusters of orange red flowers under which Gautama is said to have been born to Maya, and the Nag-Kesar tree (Mesua ferrea).. Of the fruit trees, mango was their favourite and we find a number of mango trees on the gateways of Sanchi with cheerful groups of monkeys gamboling in their branches. In Kushan Mathura we find beautiful sculptures of Yakshis, the Woodnymps, in which we find ornamental trees associated with women. Asoka, Kadamba and Champak were their favourite trees. In the Hindu caves at Ellora there is a beautiful representation of Indra and his queen sitting under the shade of a mango tree laden with luscious fruits. After the ancient Buddhists and Hindus it were the Moghuls who laid out a number of gardens of extraordinary beauty in Kashmir, Lahore, Delhi and Agra. The garden architecture of the Moghuls is of surpassing beauty; running water marble or stone chutes with shell and wave designs, octagon or star parterres and terraces and Baradiris were their main features. The British gave us turf and the herbaceous border of annual flowering plants. Our parents were only familiar with such flowers as marigolds and vincas and it was the English official and his garden-loving wife who introduced phloxes, verbenas and antirrhinums and so inany other annuals which beautify our gardens.

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