Showing posts with label Landscaping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Landscaping. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Plea to Mantri's Residents Association

An article in The Hindu speaks of 'Parampara', an outfit that distributes free tulsi saplings for planting in apartment complexes, prompts me to refer to an earlier post in this blog - 'How about tulsi, Mr James ?' - appealing to Mantri's landscape architect to consider 'tulsi' for ornamental and hedge planting in common area of our complex.
If these plants now found in Mantri's landscape have any use other than ornamental,I would like to be educated. Besides, they must have paid quite a sum to the nursery for buying these hedge plants. Parampara has been distributing tulsi saplings free as part of their ongoing drive, for planting in schools, commercial places and apartment complexes.(Details from 9840324158/ 24991516).
Tulsi is worshiped in Hindu households. And,to quote from The Hindu,'tulsi works as effective cough remedy; and because of its aromatic oil content, it's a microbicidal and anti-viral agent that wards off insects; due to its ursolic acid content, it's a powerful anti-oxidant that prevents ageing and counters the effect of stress'. It is easy to grow, doesn't require much space. And the Krishna tulsi (Ocimum gratissimum), a shrub-like, long-living variety, has maximum medicinal value.
To revert to my plea to our landscape architect, we haven't had any response from Mr Sekar James. However, someone from his office (Mr Prabhakaran) phoned me acknowledging our e-mail, and saying he would meet us for discussion. This was in mid-October. And there has since been no further communication from him or Mr James.
Now that we have a residents association in the works, our working committee could consider taking up the matter. Should they decide to take it from here, I would be happy to forward to the committee my e-mail to Mr Sekar James.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

How about tulsi, Mr.James ?

This space behind A/B block,in front of the clubhouse,is being readied for landscaping. And before they do the planting on this patch, I would appreciate if our landscape architect, Mr Sekar James, could consider planting tulsi as a hedge plant.
Tulsi is found, nay, worshiped, in most households. We had potted tulsi at our third-floor apartment in Mysore. Besides its use for religious rituals, tulsi has medicinal value. My poser to our landscape architect is: Why not tulsi, Mr James?
Whenever we raise issues pertaining to resident-friendly use of common space - planting shade-giving trees by the side of visitor's parking lot, on the front lawns and along the driveway leading to I Block, and re-locating children's play area - Mantri's on-site managers stonewall us by citing landscape architect.
We are sure Mr James is not averse to accommodating residents' request/requirement. Our community-planting programme, Mr James, requires allocation of adequate space for planting about 100 trees in our common area over the next year or so. This is a small number, considering that Mantri Synergy would account for over 1,500 air-conditioners when all the 700 plus flats are occupied. I understand your constraints, Mr James. I read in newspaper that high-rise apartment buildings should leave as open space at least 70 percent of land.I wonder if Mantri's have followed this rule.
And then there is OSR, the open space reserved for greening. Would anyone know where this might be ?