SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT
LT COL NOEL ELLIS
29/IV/2022
Being a lover of the Hibiscus, one was never
satisfied with just one colour. Different colours, textures, shades and sizes
kept joining our family. There was no place in India from where we did not pick
them up. Even the online portals were explored.
Passing by a nursery always made me jam the brakes,
just to have a ‘Dekho’. My better half kept telling me to stop being a glutton.
How could one resist the temptation if one saw a new variety? Imagine how
plants would talk to each other asking, Are you from Pune? No, I am from
Bangalore. Bombay wala would bum in, ‘me Mumbaikar, kasa kaye’.
Would the other hibiscus plants feel jay if one
grew a cutting? I am not sure. I used to feel happy raising them as my very
own. It was more than daily care and looking after. From the soil mix to
manure, from watering to sunlight and shade, from placement, to the pot
selection all done to the best of our ability.
In my previous location, one started a hibiscus
drive. More than a thousand plants were planted all over the colony because
people were stealing hibiscus from each other’s gardens for offerings. There
were complaints and heart burns, which did not leave a good taste.
Be that as it may, those one-foot saplings turned into
five-foot bushes. They bloomed and bloomed well. One realised that there were
far more colours and variety that one had in the personal collection. Being a
novice, the best way to spread happiness was to plant a cutting as an ‘experiment’.
It started from the selection of the right branch.
It had to be as thick as your middle finger. It also had to be woody and not
immature or green. The cutting one took should not spoil the shape of the main
bush was the rider. Rainy season was ideal for planting. The secateur had to be
disinfected and clean. It appeared as if one had turned into a surgeon.
Parallel preparations of the pots had to be done. I
made my own combination of the potting mix. 50-50 of homemade compost and soil
from the old empty pots was the ratio. Rooting hormone was ordered online.
One had to wait for two seasons for the plants to mature and give out
branches fit for cuttings. Imagine my patience and control.
Then the moment when branches were clipped. Some
loose mud was applied to the cut branch on the bush. People told me to remove
all the leaves. I did for a few. They were further snipped to about nine-inch
cuttings.
The base of the cutting was precisely scraped to
expose the light green part. That one-inch exposed part was immersed in root
hormone and shoved in the pot. Ideally it is six inches in between two
cuttings, I ignored and shoved six cuttings to each pot. There were not enough
empty pots.
Fresh cuttings had to be placed in shade for the
first few days or at least the time till the first sprigs sprouted. Then
depending on the intensity of the sun they had to be moved to where the
sunlight would help them grow.
First two days the leaves remained green. Third day
onwards the leaves started to droop and lost their shine. In a couple of days,
the stem was just a stick jutting out of the pot. No leaves remained. Fingers
crossed, days turned to weeks and weeks into a month. Then one saw a ray of
hope.
Out of more than fifty cuttings at least forty
showed signs of life. One could see new sprigs sprout. Those small green
protrusions started turning into leaves was bliss.
Three factors were not in control, winds, rains and
cats. As time went by, out of the forty a few wilted. A clear sign of over
watering. Forty reduced to thirty. Winds would topple some pots, spreading all
its wares on the ground. Rain would wash away the rest, so thirty reduced to
twenty. Finally, the last nail was the cats. To avoid rain, they would enter
the green house and frolic, knocking down a few. Thirty came down to
twenty-five.
The ones which still had withstood the vagaries of
weather and cats were now ready to face the sun. Two more died due to the
exposure. Time now came to shift from the coast to the deserts in December. The
odds were against them, but still how could one leave them. Here they came and
the winter chill hit them hard; three more perished.
Winters changed to spring and now it’s peak summer
and only ten are left. One special one bloomed today. Can you imagine our
happiness when the experiment became successful? I wonder!!!!!!!!!
JAI HIND
© NOEL ELLIS
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