‘Bengaluru in Bloom 21’ to celebrate lockdown gardening

Stay home, go green. Forced indoors by the ferocious pandemic second wave, scores of Bengalureans have taken to gardening as a stress-busting therapeutic distraction.

A Facebook community bonding around this deep-rooted passion is now busy with a unique contest: ‘Bengaluru in Bloom 21.’

Conjured by Alyia Phelps-Gardiner-Krumbiegal, the idea is pretty straightforward: Capture an image or video of your home garden, post it on Facebook with an appropriate category hashtag and go on to win a prize.

But beyond this lies a grand plan: Bring back Bengaluru’s lost garden glory with a collaborative flourish.

For Alyia, her great grandfather, the legendary German horticulturist Gustav Krumbiegel had shown the green path well over a century ago.

Tasked with developing the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, Krumbiegal had gone beyond that brief, injecting old Bangalore with a new green aesthetic.

The Cassias, Gulmohars, Tabebuias and Bougainvillea clusters in the city’s multiple gardens and tree-lined avenues are reminders of that iconic legacy. Bengaluru in Bloom 21 now gives it a contemporary twist with a homely, participative spirit.

Bangalore Gardeners, the Facebook Group that has activated the contest, is a massive community of over 18,000 members.

Two weeks ahead of the contest closure, the group is now hyperactive, bringing alive home garden visuals in all their multi-hued splendour.

The contest has multiple categories: Bloom Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21), Balcony Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21_balconygarden), Terrace Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21_terracegarden), Land Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21_landgarden), Indoor Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21_indoorgarden), Senior Garden (#bengaluruinbloom21_seniorgarden) and Official Sponsor Award (#greenhouseblr).

The winners will be selected by a jury comprising Trishikha Kumari Wadiyar from the Mysore royal family, Harish J Padmanabha, Priya Chetty-Rajagopal and George Abraham.

To authenticate the posted images and videos, the contest organisers could video call the participants for a real-time look at their gardens.