Ooty rose garden gears up for silver jubilee celebration

Udhagamandalam: The Government Rose Garden in Ooty has added 201 new plant varieties to the existing 4000 varieties ahead of its silver jubilee celebration in May. With 31,500 rose plants of 4,201 varieties, it is one of the biggest and finest rose gardens in the country.

Shiva Subramaniam Samraj, joint director of horticulture department, said, “As many as 201 new rose varieties have been added to the garden in the past 10 months. In total, we have added 500 varieties of roses in the past three years. The heritage section of the garden houses very rare and old varieties and it is a major tourist attraction.”

He said the new varieties of roses were developed by Rose Federation, an authenticate body. The federation will develop new varieties according to the requirements of gardens and name them. The new varieties are also patented by them.

The garden houses rose varieties that are named after former chief minister Jayalalithaa and founder of modern Nilgiris, John Sullivan.

It is to be noted that Colin Sullivan, a descendant of John Sullivan, had in 2014 made a humble suggestion to name a rose after the latter through the Nilgiri Documentation Centre. Subsequently, in January 2019, a new variety was developed and named after John Sullivan.

When Steve Jones, president, World Federation of Rose Societies, visited the garden in 2014 he had said, “The Ooty rose garden is one among the 100 best rose gardens in the world.”

The garden comes alive with roses in full bloom in April and May. “In other months, rose blooms according to characteristics of each plant,” the joint director of horticulture department said.

Developed and maintained by the horticulture department, the garden is located in a royal area of Vijayanagaram. It was set up in 1995 to celebrate the centenary of the annual flower show at the Government Botanical Garden in Ooty. Spread across 10 acres, the garden had in 2006 won the prestigious garden of excellence award that was instituted by the World Federation of Rose Societies.

Recently, an irrigation system was installed in the garden at a cost of Rs 20 lakh under the special area development project. “This is mainly to protect the plants during winter and summer. We are taking all efforts to maintain the excellence of the garden. We will be celebrating the silver jubilee of the garden in a grand manner,” Samraj said.