In Bangalore? Nurse your green finger

In an age when trees are being felled at an alarming rate to give way to high rises, it is heartening to know that nurseries still flourish in the city.

Obalappa Nursery on Lalbagh Road is one such place. A family business, this nursery is well over a century old and primarily deals with indoor and ornamental plants, avenue-lining trees and fruit trees. Besides these, it also has an exotic range of flowering plants and several kinds of seeds to boot.

In a highly competitive world, this nursery has never regarded its contemporaries as competitors, in fact there is a healthy relationship of exchange. At times, when Obalappa does not have the plants you are looking for, it sources them from other nurseries, and this exchange is mutual. This nursery is particularly famous for its palms. Incidentally, besides being a full-fledged nursery, it also does landscaping and boasts of an impressive list of clientele.

The Indo-American Hybrid (IAH), on the other hand, was the first to popularise the concept of hybrid fruits and vegetables . It stocks seeds for a wide variety of flowers that include antirrhinum, geranium, impatiens, nicotiana and petunia. It was also the first to introduce climate-controlled greenhouses for flowers such as chrysanthemum, carnation and gerbera. The main aim of IAHS lies in developing and marketing hybrid seeds for fruits, flowers and crops such as cotton and rice.

So, go ahead and nurture your green finger and see your dream garden blossom.