Sri Venkateshwarites sojourn to the Mughal Gardens

The Mughal Gardens – the beautiful gardens loaded with dozens of flowers and medicinal herbs. This garden is based on the Persian style of gardening and is only open to the public at a specific time of the year; mainly February-March.

It consists of three main gardens:
1. The Herbal Garden
2. The Bonsai Garden
3. The Circular Garden

The HERBAL GARDEN was the first garden we visited. It has herbs used for Ayurveda. Around 33 medicinal and aromatic plants can be seen here. The benefits of each plant are indicated next to its bed in the garden. The bio-diesel producing plant Jatropha; Stevia, which provides safe sugar for diabetics, Isabgol (plantago), Damask Rose, Ashwagandha, Brahmi, Fenugreek (methi) used to cure diabetes, Aparkarta, tulsi, lemongrass (used for perfuming), peppermint (used for fragrance, curing mouth problems) and many plants like that are prominent.

Next we visited the BONSAI GARDEN, which is based on the Japanese art of gardening. This mainly has plants but in a smaller size using some chemical substances to limit their growth and height. The Bonsai Garden was set up in 2010 with about 250 Bonsai Plants. The varieties include those in upright, slanting, cascade and semi cascade forms. The collection includes Bonsai of Ficus Infactoria, Ficus Panda, China Orange, Malpigia, Bougainvillea, Pinus, Mimusops Elengi, etc.

The third garden we visited was the CIRCULAR GARDEN (‘Pearl’ or Butterfly’ or ‘Sunken’) planted with fragrant varieties like Phlox of different colors, Marigold Stock, Viola and Pansies in different colors, Sweet William, Clarkia, Ring of Orange -Marigold. A bubble fountain in the middle of this bowl, surrounded by greens enhanced the grandeur of the place. The path to the round pool is through two pergolas with Stone beams which culminate in overhangs that suggest the trunks of elephants.

There was a SPIRITUAL GARDEN with plants cutting across their religious connectivity requesting visitors to take a simple lesson from them of the need for co-existence despite the differences in religion and culture.