My Raat ki raani blooms!

I bought my young Raat ki raani from a road side nursery on the way to Hoskote on Old Madras Road. Sixty bucks for the plant was expensive, but it was large and in a biggish pot so I indulged him!

The plant did not do well in a pot, so I removed a fern from the corner of the lawn and put this down. Like Jack and the Beanstalk, The plant just took off like it had hit pay dirt and it turned into a huge green monster. I just pretended not to see it every day thinking if its happy whom am I to stop it?! But not a flower appeared. Just these lush long branches and tons of lusher leaves.

I just took deep breaths as I passed a small little plant growing in Shoolay around a a tiny house, which was covered in flowers.Those people were just palin lucky I thought to myself.The flowers are not nice to look at -- take a look at my pictures. They are green and cylinderical and ugly. But come the night and poof, like Alice in Wonderland the flowers turn into a mass of fragrant smelling blooms.

Then came Narsimappa from Hoskote and while I was away in Madurai for my PhD exam, hacked the tree down to almost its base. When I returned I was horrified and stood in shock yelling at Steve and Bonny for allowing this carnage! I felt so sad for it and even put some wet mud on the ends of branches which had been lopped off.

Then suddenly like magic, all the stems have sprouted flowers! Yes, the whole hacked shrub as you can see in the pic has masses and masses of flowers and I could die with the wonderful smell wafting from the garden every night!

Funny how I can 'hear' Dad telling us things to do in the garden so many years ago. He always said, tons of leaves means the plant is just feeding the branches. Cut them back and it will flower. Well, his words ring true every single time!

Narsimappa will have his little I told you so grin, just watch when we go this weekend to Hoskote!