ISLAMABAD: As the weather in the city changes and the environment is set to turn cold and grey, the flower and plant business is thriving.

Moving from Peshawar Mor along 9th Avenue, colourful flowers and exotic plants displayed by nurseries call out to Islamabad’s citizens.

“Unlike most of the country, the people of Islamabad have a prime taste for flora and fauna,” Mohammad Irfan, of the Baloch Nursey, said. “Here even those living in small houses want at least one or two plants.”

As is visible in the city, the CDA ensures that seasonal flowers and plants are planted alongside almost all roads, but it is the citizens that go the extra mile to keep the city beautiful.

“People here like flowers and decorative plants, and they even plant on government land and on the small spaces outside their homes,” Mustafa Khan, a Peshawar native who owns a nursery in H-9, said.

People – including children and seniors – can be seen at various nurseries in the city year round – taking a keen interest in the wide variety of plants available.

And the demand is not only high for flowering and decorative plants; a number of nurseries also develop stocks of medicinal plants, and some are experts in selling the saplings of fruiting plants.

“We have our main business in Thailand. This year, we have introduced a purple lily that is grown in a pot and can also be kept indoors,” Mohammad Usman, who entered the field a few years ago, said.

Some shops, meanwhile, stock flower pots and garden accessories.

“I come here regularly, because here they have beautiful flower pots, good quality earth, manure, and most of all, an endless variety suited to taste,” Rawalpindi resident Sadaf Khurrum said.

Khurrum was in the market for lemongrass, but was also interested in localised fruits like Karonda, also known as Carissa carandas.

Although the arrival of spring, in late February and early March, is typically the peak sales season for nurseries, business continues even at the onset of winter, now that sellers have introduced plants that bloom in the cold weather.

“The demand for local flowering plants is on the decline, and the exotic ones have taken over, which also fetch higher rates,” Mustafa Khan said.

This is mainly due to countries, such as the Netherlands, Japan, Thailand and India, developing seeds that produce attractive and long-lasting flowers.

“The seedlings that sprout from these imported seeds produce flowers for the whole season. There are some good varieties for winter, but the best one for the current season is the marigold,” Mohammad Irfan said.

“Gul-e-Nargis will bloom in December and January.”

There is a significant list of flowering plants that will blood up to mid-December, but neither the sellers nor ordinary buyers, know the names of these flowers available in the city’s nurseries.

Local varieties, such as the chambeli (jasmine), motia (jasmine variety), champa (frangipani), raat ki rani (cestrum), rose, and less widely known tree of din ka raja (cestrum diurnum), bloom up until late summer.

In addition to local sales, nurseries in the city also supply plants, flowers, and saplings for fruiting trees to a large area, stretching from Attock to Jhelum, as well as Murree and Hazara.

And the prospects for these nurseries seem optimistic, as their business will grow alongside the development of major construction projects, many of which include green areas surrounding completed projects.

Published in Dawn, September 28th , 2015

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