SRINAGAR: Since Asia’s largest tulip garden opened this Wednesday, visitors have been flocking to recreate scenes from Bollywood films, taking selfies amid long rows of flowers beds.
To give them this aesthetic pleasure, a team of 110 persons round the year to make 1.5 million flowers bloom in the garden that is spread over 20 acres on the foothills of the Zabarwan range.
About 2.25 lakh people visited the garden last year despite the Covid wave. Assistant Floriculture Officer, Tulip Garden, Inam-ul-Rehman said about 110 people, including 60 gardeners and casual labourers, work in the garden.
One of the gardeners, who has been working for the last 15 years, said, “We have to put in the hard work for 11 months to make the one-month show successful. We hope that people in large numbers will visit. We feel proud when tourists come to see tulips and click pictures and make videos.”
Another gardener who has been working for four years said they plant the tulip bulbs as per the variety of its bloom.
“We have early, mid and late varieties of tulips. We plant them accordingly to keep the garden open for a month and allow the visitors to see tulips of different colours and varieties in full bloom. The carpet of flowers of different colours truly gives the feeling of paradise,” he said.
The opening of the tulip garden signals the arrival of spring in Kashmir.
“Tulips needs low temperature for survival. If the temperature during the bloom increases, then we have to irrigate the garden with care without hurting the flower. We have to irrigate at night. We cannot spray water on the flowers or else they will get damaged,” said a labourer.
A lot of planning goes into designing of different sections of the garden.
“Tulips of different colours are planted. If we feel that the colour combination does not match, then we change it next year,” he said.