Botanical Garden gets makeover for 2nd season

COIMBATORE: The Government Botanical Garden (GBG), one of the major tourist attractions in Udhagamandalam, is undergoing a makeover ahead of the second tourist season to commence next month.

In an added visual treat to tourists, the garden is being spruced up with Japanese style gazebo and ornamental shrubs are shaped into decorative structures.

“Works are underway to develop a Japanese style gazebo (open garden structure with a seating inside the sheltered area) along with bamboo decorations to provide a perfect photo opportunity for tourists. This besides, the ornamental shrubs will be trimmed and shaped into different decorative structures by embracing the art of topiary,” said D Balashankar, Assistant Director of Horticulture (Nilgiris). It has been developed on the essence of Japanese styled gardens, which will have eye-catching greenery amidst water. The existing garden too has a small bridge over water.

Apart from providing a peaceful retreat with greenery soothing one’s mind, the GBG is also informative, as tourists get to know about the rich flora in the sprawling garden. Enthused by the increasing number of tourists using QR codes fixed on trees, the Horticulture Department has decided to affix QR codes to all trees in the sprawling garden. “So far the QR code has been fixed on 100 trees and works will be taken up to fix them in over 1,000 trees in the garden,” Balashankar said.

By scanning the code, the tourists get to know common names, binomial nomenclature, family name, age, nativity, Tamil name and benefits of the plant in both Tamil and English.

These developmental works were undertaken after providing visually appealing seating arrangements in the structure of fruits and vegetables in the garden. Seating were provided in the shape of vegetables; bitter gourd, brinjal and carrot, while its papaya, watermelon and apple among fruits.

Currently, the garden records a footfall of 3,000 tourists on normal days and it goes to 13,000 during weekends. “This is a heavy crowd at this point of time as tourist arrivals from Kerala and Karnataka remain high. Also, the turnout is huge due to extended holidays,” said another official.