I love to click pictures of flowers, especially Roses, as you may have observed; I love long early morning walks that take me along a path lined with trees; I love plucking fruits and veggies off the plants and eating them right away or bringing them home to cook. I’m a Nature-lover through and through. But gardening? I have a love/hate relationship with it! It is something I wish to be able to do, but, in which I have failed so miserably, so often.

Many a times I have prepared the soil, sown the seeds, watered the seedbed for a few days and rejoiced at the sight of the saplings emerging gingerly out of the soil. But they have always shriveled and died in the end. Never have I been able to nurture them.

I have given up on the idea that I too am capable of growing a Vegetable Garden someday. It’s simply not my thing. That’s my Mother-in-law’s forte. Thanks to her passion and patience, we grow a lot of the veggies we consume.

So she and I (along with the kids) decided to visit the Horticulture Expo. on Necklace Street, by the Hussain Sagar Lake (remember the post I did yesterday, about “Eat Street“? It is close to that.) in order to buy a few flowering plants, seeds of veggies and fruits and big pots. The entry was free; we were charged only for parking our car.

The more we walked, the more there was to see. Orchids, Bonsai, Pots of every size and shape, tools required for gardening. Even Organic veggies and fruits were on display and for sale. My mother-in-law was left spell-bound; she couldn’t decide on what to buy and what to leave behind. Medha and Madhav were ecstatic to be out in the crowd and were found to be running around, checking out balloons and bubble-makers. Thank God we had taken Madhav’s stroller along, we could fit a few plants in the storage space, apart from strapping him to one place!

Then a woman came, offering to carry the plants and pots for a 100 rupees. She was with us the whole time, poor thing, carrying the stuff we bought, on her head and placing them down on the ground whenever we paused to purchase at a stall.

We bought a lot, enough to fill most of the space in our car. Mother-in-law had to be dragged out in the end as I was beginning to feel tired, managing a couple of high-energy kids. I was feeling hungry too (there wasn’t much to eat inside).

She will probably go again, but I had my fill (of myriad colors, flower arrangements and the buzz of the crowd).