THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It lies on the edge of the rubber plantation and acacia trees, a dry rocky hill which is slowly getting metamorphosed into a forest. Dense foliage is being created in patches as hundreds of trees grow at an accelerated pace. On Sunday, the area became richer by over 500 trees as saplings of flowering and fruit-bearing trees were planted. "The idea is to turn the hill into a forest," says M R Hari, managing director of Invis Multimedia who is on a one-man mission to create a forest on his land in Puliyarakonam.

The saplings were planted separately in two cents of land each. 
"The concept here is that of a food forest," says Hari as he takes you to the two-cent plot in which the freshly planted set of a variety of fruit saplings rest. All varieties of indigenous fruit trees have been planted in the two-cent plot while flowering plants rest in another two-cent plot adjacent to this. The saplings were planted following the Akira Miyawaki method of afforestation, a model which Hari has been following to create micro forests in his plot. 

"This time, instead of following the usual method of placing four trees within one square metre, only two saplings have been planted. Space is left to carry out vegetable farming which will be set up at a raised bed once these plants grow. It is a popular belief that you need to clear the area for cultivation which I am trying to disprove. Let it all grow together in the forest and you just take whatever you get," says Hari.
A bed of one-metre depth was prepared using a mixture of soil, coir pith, dried cow dung and hull (of paddy). The saplings are first grown for two and a half months separately before planting. Only indigenous varieties of plants are being planted. The plants will require watering in the initial three years but after that, it may not need any kind of maintenance.  

Just a stone's throw away lies another three-cents of land where already boasts of a good canopy, where he had followed the Miyawaki method of afforestation. 
Close to 400 trees rub shoulders here. It has been just 16 months since they were planted, but the place resembles a micro-forest already, all swathed in riotous foliage. 

"The growth rate gets accelerated when the trees are planted cheek by jowl. In another year, you may not be able to enter into this, the trees would have grown that thick," he says. "Next, I am exploring the possibilities of creating this on top of the terrace. The whole area was a dry hill. I had tried all sorts of measures to try and create a forest here. But nothing took root. Soon you will get the ambience of a typical rainforest here," he says.