Floriculture offers flowery job avenues

Elangbam Nikita & Ningthoujam Prasant

IMPHAL | Aug 14

 Laishram Guramangi (LG) Rose Garden, a well known and popular recreational garden, has a nursery where plants are cultured and nurtured in bulk before being retailed to other nurseries, who in turn sell them to the general public.

The garden which is owned by Laishram Dewakar is known for floriculture, a branch of agriculture concerned with the development of flowering and ornamental plants for home gardens and and other hobbyists.

The garden creates diverse types of plants such as pot plants, house plants, flowers, fruit bearing and ornamental trees.

“The trend for retailing flowers and other ornamental trees is increasing nowadays. Several women vendors come four to five times in a week to make bulk purchases. Additionally, individuals flock the garden to purchase seasonal flowers and other ornamental plants mainly during festivals, such as Diwali and in the wedding seasons,” said Thokchom Ibochou, an experienced nurseryman of the garden.

He said peak sale generally happen during November and February. The sales can go up to Rs. 10,000 per day during that period, claimed Ibochou, adding that Marigold is the much sought after during Diwali.

Ibochou was despondent about the state not having the capacity to create flowers and plants which can be exported to other states. He said Leihao saplings and other flowers and plants are supplied from Kolkata and Guwahati.

He expressed dissatisfaction on the requirement for saving indigenous plants of the state, for example, Urirei, Nageshwor, Labangga and so forth which are scarcely available.

One reason for such slack in the field of management of plant is the absence of work culture, especially among the young people, he said. Unemployed young people can procure and help themselves by filling in as a gardener or nurseryman instead of indulging in drugs, he suggested. The L.G. Rose Garden will offer a 3-month course from March next year in which 10 ccandidates will be chosen for training in the management of plants and nurseries. The scope of management of plants extends from vegetables to flowers and other ornamental plants, he further added.

Ibochou claims that the garden has more than 500 varieties of roses. Different types of flowers and plants include Kaboklei, Leihao, Azalea, U-thambal, Seed-less orange, sweet lemon, foxtail palm, traveller tree and so on. Some of the techniques used for the propagation of plants are cutting, layering and grafting. He stated, “With various 18 nurserymen, the nursery is kept up in the most ideal approach to keep the plants healthy by utilizing ‘cow dung’ as its main manure.”