Plant your own garden
CHITRAL, Jan 14: With greeting to all Chitralis, we would like to inform you that the Chitral Horticultural Society website has been launched.
Check out www.chitralhorticulturalsociety.com, you can also visit us on Facebook. Do give us your valuable reviews as this is a soft opening and much will change on it. We would like to host as many gardens as possible irrespective of the size or popularity. Each one of you can contribute by making your own garden more beautiful, or send us a photo you took of a wild flower in the Hindukush that we will acknowledge and share.
We hope the CHS plans will add a little more good to Chitral besides what all you are doing. Our activities have so far been on a self-help basis with no donor behind it and this is the way we feel most of the things should run. The Chitral Horticultural Society will grow and its website will periodically change and improve to bring more colour to “Your Chitral” for you to enjoy and for the rest of the world to share with.
Dr Irshad
General Secretary
Chitral Horticultural Society]]>
Irshad sahib, congratulations to you & the entire team of CHS, for the brilliant initiatives: establishing Chitral Horticultural Society and launching a website.
As for as I know, horticulture is a vast field that deals with plant cultivation, including fruits, flowers, vegetables, herbs and grass etc. About gardening and fruit plantation, we will discuss some other times; regarding the website, here is my two cents:
On the website besides some of the beautiful gardens, I found almost 85 herbs/flowers/plants tagged with local (Khowar) names, botanical names, with short descriptions and supporting pictures. Though, a few pictures are missing, and other tabs yet to be updated and improved, nonetheless the website is very informative and interesting. Some of the local herbs we would see many a times without knowing their local names. Similarly, I had heard some of the names without knowing their morphology—shapes and structures. After going through the website, http://www.chitralhorticulturalsociety.com, somehow I feel educated in both aspects. Thanks for that. Moreover, the picture of ‘Kasthi’, ‘Kharkhalij’ and ‘Garmezu’ seem to be different from what I thought them to be. Should I update my visual vocabulary or you change the pictures, do not know, really.
I passionately searched for two beautiful wild flowers: ‘Kulkundik’ and ‘Gulchin’; alas, neither was there. After a long snowy winter, as a kid, the first flower we would see was that of Kulkundik. As a sign of spring commencement, we would carefully dig it out, and used to take around the village to show to the grandmas. The caring village mothers would kiss the flower and us both on the cheek, followed by a usual remarks: Hai hai, dunya Bosoon beru! Not to mention, as a herald of spring arrival, it was our ‘basic right’ to expect dried fruits in return. Believe me, we were never disappointed!
Similarly, I cannot explain how it feels to see the little ‘Gulchin’ alongside a grassy canal. After snow melting, seeing the first greenery coupled with blooming Gulchin is not something to tell about but to feel and observe. It must be one of such a precious moments when Wordsworth had to say:
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils!
Nisar Ahmad Shah
Garam Chashma
Very good and creative idea to preserve the beauty of our valley #CHITRAL….(Y)
Welcome change, congratulation for the innovative idea that takes us out of the quagmire of politics.