A Stroll In The Hyderabad Botanical Garden

Me and  my  husband  were  thinking  for quite a while to visit the Botanical Garden in Hyderabad. Heard it was not completely developed,but we thought we could give it a try.So last sunday we reached the garden in Kondapur around 11am.The entry fees was Rs10 for adults ,Rs5 for children, Rs10 for still camera and Rs50 for video camera.

This garden officially know as "Kotla VijayBhaskar Reddy Botanical Garden" was established in the year 2000 and the foundation stone was laid by the then chief minister Mr.N.Chandra Babu Naidu.

Once you enter the garden and have a quick glance and then you come to know that this is a very under developed garden,forget about botanical garden it seemed like a abandoned park.

Because of the heavy monsoon rains this season,the garden view was pretty with green lush plants and pastures.

There is board indicating that the garden is categorically divided into 17 vanas.Right now only only two of them were open to the public and the rest are under development.

There was also a board indicating the state plant and flowers of each state in India.The state plant of Andhra Pradesh is Neem,but the state flower is yet to be declared(as written on the board).But according to info in the http://www.flowersofindia.net/misc/state_flora.html website the state flower is water lily.
I know it is quite recurring experience to many of us who go to parks or gardens, c'mon guys you all know about whom i'm refering to -the lovers.Here also,there were many or shall i say,it was majority of them and few(i would saw very scanty) families here and there.

Though the garden is under developed it is a quite,calm,serene place away from the hustle bustle of the city.You can hear the chirping of birds,see beautiful ,colouful butterflies and plenty of dragonflies.

There were boards hung up here and there indicating that the garden offers some weekend activities(water walking,Burma bridge etc)

There is a small area allocated for children where there are some playground equipment(swings etc)

As i told you before only two vanas are open,so first we went to the cacti plant garden(jemudu mokkala vanam)

There were quite a no.of cactii there,but most of them weathered may be due to the heavy excessive rains we are having this season.Here are a few pics

                                         

I felt the cacti plant garden at the NTR gardens was very well maintained when compared to this one.

Then we saw a few water bodies here and there and again very badly maintained ones,how ever we managed to capture few beautiful picture of a water lily in full bloom in the waters.Here it is

How many of you have seen the flowers of sorrel leaves, i guess very few among us especially those who are

brought up in the cities.Here i got to see the blossoms of red sorrel leaves(Erra Gongura).Quite a treat to see these awsome flowers,here is a pic



Then we went to the ornamental plants vanam. Here there were the regular country roses,button roses
which were some how not in pink of health(quite a neglected lot).

But the hibiscus plant area is something which should not be missed.We can see many colourful shoeflowers. A picture is worth a thousand words,so have a look at these pictures as i feel i feel short of words to describe the simple beauty of these splendid flowers.

                                                                

Then we saw the passion flower and champak(sampangi) plants grown as creepers in the garden.None of them had flowers,but the champak plant had bunches of green fruits.

One thing which is missing from the garden is the name plates on the plants.Very few plants had name plates on them.

Got to see these beautiful violet flowers,

Here is tree which belongs to the bamboo species

That's it with garden.All i would say is don't go by it's name(Botanical graden),no guys it can't be compared with the other botanical gardens in the country.It would take years,before it develops into a fledged one.

When compared to the other parks in the city(NTR,Lumbini,Krishnakant) which are always brimming with people over the weekend,this place offers you an off beat experience.

If you want to take a quick escapade from the city,the pollution and the crowd,i would say this is a nice one.