Omar Abdullah inaugurates Srinagar’s first ‘waste to wonder’ flower garden

Srinagar, Aug 21 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday inaugurated Srinagar’s first ‘waste to wonder’ flower garden, officials said.

Officials added that the Chief Minister inaugurated Srinagar’s first Waste to Wonder-Flower Garden developed by the Floriculture Department.

The garden has been developed at Floriculture Park at Polo View in Srinagar.

Omar Abdullah described the innovative garden as an effort to demonstrate how discarded materials can be given a new life through creativity, reuse and recycling.

The Chief Minister first inaugurated the Floriculture Mela and visited the exhibition showcasing a wide range of floral varieties and products associated with floriculture.

He inspected stalls put up by flower growers and farmers from across the districts of Kashmir, featuring ornamental nurseries, interior herbal plants, pots and terrariums, floral decor and gifts, event management services, cut flowers and machinery and products of Jammu and Kashmir Agros, among other items.

Interacting with the stall owners, the Chief Minister appreciated their innovative business models and encouraged them to continue expanding their activities in the floriculture sector.

He also wished the growers and entrepreneurs success in their endeavours.

The Floriculture Mela provides flower growers, nursery owners and floriculture enthusiasts from various districts of Kashmir a platform to showcase their floral produce, exchange best practices and explore commercial opportunities in the sector.

Later, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah inaugurated the Waste to Wonder–Flower Garden and took a tour of the thematic garden, which features a range of attractive installations created from discarded and scrapped materials.

These include a vintage Ambassador car, classic Kashmiri tonga, floral boat, floral scooter, heritage jeep, floral tractor, old tyres and other reclaimed items, which have been creatively transformed into garden features.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the garden was a wonderful initiative of the Department of Floriculture aimed at demonstrating that discarded objects could be reused with thought and imagination.

“This is an effort by the Department of Floriculture to show people that almost anything can be reused if you have the thought and imagination to do so,” he added.

Pointing towards the installations, the Chief Minister said the garden contained several unusual objects that one would not normally imagine being used in a garden, including a tractor, scooter, old jeep, Ambassador car and even a refrigerator in which plants had been placed and decorated.

He added that the initiative carries an important message for society to think about reuse and recycling before throwing things away, particularly at a time when solid waste and plastic waste management has emerged as a major challenge in cities and villages.

“Before throwing anything away, we should stop and think whether it can be reused or recycled. Of course, we cannot use every piece of waste as a decorative item, but wherever there is a possibility of recycling or reuse, we should make the effort,” the Chief Minister said.

Emphasising the importance of reducing plastic waste, he added that people could adopt simple habits such as carrying reusable bags from home while going shopping instead of taking new plastic bags from shops and subsequently discarding them.

“That is the message behind this garden, and I hope people will come here, enjoy it and also take this message back with them,” the Chief Minister said.

The garden has been conceived as a thematic model landscape based on the principles of Reduce, Recycle and Reuse (RRR). Nearly 90 per cent of the materials used in its construction have been sourced through recycling and refurbishment rather than fresh procurement, making the project an example of resource-efficient and sustainable landscaping.

Designed as an all-season garden, the Waste to Wonder–Flower Garden has been planned to offer continuous bloom from spring through late autumn.

Plant selection and bloom-succession scheduling are aimed at keeping the site visually vibrant and florally active across changing seasons.

The Chief Minister also spoke about the scope for further developing the Chrysanthemum Garden, noting that its first season had provided valuable lessons that could be used to improve it during its second season.

Drawing a parallel with the evolution of the Tulip Garden, the Chief Minister said the iconic garden had also started on a much smaller scale and was developed progressively over the years through the addition of features such as fountains, water channels and new levels.

“In the same way, we will continue to add to and improve the Chrysanthemum Garden,” he added.

Regarding the Waste to Wonder Garden, the Chief Minister suggested that the Department of Floriculture should visit Chandigarh to study similar initiatives and explore possibilities of recreating and further developing the concept in Jammu and Kashmir.

“If we can recreate a similar Waste to Wonder concept here, it could become a great attraction for tourism,” he said.

Advisor to the Chief Minister Nasir Aslam Wani, MLA Bani Rameshwar Singh, Additional Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister Dheeraj Gupta, Principal Secretary (Culture) Brij Mohan Sharma, Commissioner Secretary Floriculture, Gardens and Parks Zubair Ahmad, Gardens and Parks Kashmir Floriculture Director Mathora Masoom and other concerned officers were present on the occasion.

–IANS

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