Mantri's plantsman Muthiah

Mr Muthiah is the chief of Mantri's gardening staff. He chose the species that we planting on Mantri visitors parking lot last evening. When I asked him about the saplings of his choice Mr Muthiah mentioned something in Botanical mumbo-jumbo. Which impressed me, without making me any wiser.It is a species that belong to the badam family, he said.

What we planted were two year old saplings. Mr Muthiah reckons they would start giving us shade cover in about six months. My preference would have been for neem, which, he says, would take years grow.But then any species that gives us much needed shade,fairly fast-growing, is good enough. Mr Muthiah has helped us procure all the eight saplings - six neems and two shenbagums - that we have planted till date in our community tree-planting programme.

Gardeners Keliappan and Ramachandran did the digging and shoveling, and the house-keeping staff - Pushpa and Geetha - brought in the buckets for watering the plants.