At Bagh-e-Gul Dawood – Kashmir’s first exclusive chrysanthemum garden – Vicky watches his six-year-old son lollop about. Around him stretch rows of vibrant chrysanthemums – red, pink, brown, yellow, and white – their sweet, lush scent filling the air.
“This is beyond my imagination,” Vicky, a tourist from Uttar Pradesh, says in awe. “Kashmir is beautiful but here you feel at peace. It’s a great escape from the ruthlessness of city life.”
On Saturday, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah will officially open Kashmir’s latest tourist spot – the Bagh-e-Gul Dawood at Cheshma Shahi. Cradled between the bluish Zabarwan mountains and the shimmering Dal Lake, the terraced Bagh-e-Gul Dawood – or Chrysanthemum Garden – stands next to Srinagar’s other main attraction, the Tulip Garden.
A project considered close to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s heart, the garden sprawls over 100 kanals of land inside the famed Botanical Garden. The opening comes as the summer tourist season winds down, with hopes that it will draw visitors in winter too.
“This is a themed garden exclusively of chrysanthemums, and it’s going to extend our tourism season beyond October,” Director Floriculture Mathoora Masoom told The Indian Express. “We want people, whether locals or tourists, to come and enjoy such a serene and beautiful landscape.”
The garden boasts over 60 varieties of chrysanthemums. “This is the first year of this theme garden, and we have planted 1,00,000 chrysanthemum plants here,” Javaid Masood, floriculture officer at the Botanical Garden, said. “Around 30 lakh flowers have bloomed in the garden.”
The project was conceived last year after Abdullah’s government took office. He took personal interest, and his government earmarked just under Rs 2 crore for it.
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“We had a very short window for this project,” Floriculture Officer Masood, who also helped lay out Srinagar’s Tulip Garden, said. “Next year, it will be bigger and more beautiful. We will add more plants, varieties, and colors.”
Unlike the Tulip Garden, investment costs here were far lower. “In tulips, you have to procure bulbs each year, but here the plant stays for many years,” Masood said. “It’s resistant to diseases and less affected by weather conditions.”
To make it more vibrant, the floriculture department has planted exotic trees such as Ginkgo, maples, and chinars. The administration hopes that the blooming chrysanthemums will infuse new life into Kashmir’s tourism, which has struggled since the Pahalgam terror attack in April.
“These [exotic trees] will add to the aesthetics of this garden,” Masood said.
