The monsoon has washed the city in green, but inside Kusumtai Wankhede Hall on Sunday, nature was seen arranged in another form. Nearly, 1,000 entries of roses, bonsai, indoor plants, cacti, succulents, cut flowers and floral arrangements filled the hall. The occasion was the 124th Flower Show and 51st Indoor and House Plants Show of the Nagpur Garden Club and ‘The Hitavada’. The annual Monsoon Flower Show, organised in memory of late Kusumtai Wankhede, brought together a collection that ranged from cultivated house plants to individual roses and floral carpets. Twisted trunks and branches in bonsai section could not have been produced in a season. The roses were shown individually in slender glass bottles.

 

Cacti and succulents, flowering plants and other indoor varieties added to the range of the exhibition. Among individual exhibitors, Rekha Deshmukh secured the maximum marks in the Indoor and House Plants section, while Nadeem Rehman dominated the Cactus and Succulent section. MMP Industries Limited, Umrer, secured the maximum marks in the Roses section. Gurpreet Sing, a veteran rose grower, won the King of HT Roses award for Lowse Estate and the Samrat of Indian Variety award for Bahurupi. MMP Industries Limited won the Queen, Prince and Princess of HT Roses titles, besides the Queen of Floribunda Roses. Lok Bhavan won the King of Floribunda and the King and Queen of Miniature Roses titles.

 

he exhibits were judged by Datta Kale and B V Kopulwar for Roses; Mangesh Thaware and Vikramsingh Parihar for Bonsai and Adenium; Abhjit Patil and Atul Deshmukh for Indoor Plants and Cut Flowers other than Roses; Anuradha Raina and Dhanwanti Pandharpurkar for Flower Arrangement; Dr Shanil Sahadeb Das for Cactus and Succulents; and Sonali Sahastrabuddhe and Shilpa Viswarupe for the Drawing and Carpet sections. The show was inaugurated by G Guruprasad, Conservator of Forests from Bangaluru. Rajashree Bapat, President of Garden Club, welcomed the chief guest, while Swati Gokhale, Chairman of the Flower Show Committee, presented the report.

 

The show had begun a day earlier for city’s schoolchildren. On Saturday, students participated in drawing and Floral Carpet Competitions. Bhavan’s Vidya Mandir, Civil lines won the Floral Carpet Competition, followed by Tip Top Convent, and Hadas High School in the second and third positions. Global Indian International School, Lava, and Sandipani Schools received consolation prizes. Nitin Datey, Supriya Naware, Kedar Gokhale, Anuja Parchure, Prashant Telang, Shrikant Doifode, Madhuri Deo, Sarang Gurjar, Lata Andhare, Aarti Rajkondawar, Gunjan Khandelwal and Manisha Thakar contributed towards success of the show. Padma Deshraj conducted the proceedings, while club secretary Samit Admane proposed a vote of thanks. The prize distribution ceremony will be held on September 13 at 10.30 am at the premises of Nagpur Garden Club.