‘It is all about creating a healthy ecosystem around’

CHENNAI : Every square inch of Mamatha Gundappa’s house near Bangalore University is dotted with plants and creepers. The 53-year-old’s love affair with plants began when she germinated horsegram in the small space in front of her childhood home. “I used to have competitions with my siblings about whose plants had grown the most,” she reminisces.

Gundappa has more than 100 different plant varieties in her house, including indoor and outdoor plants. “I don’t know the names of many of these plants, I have grown up with these varieties, so I know almost instinctively how to care for them,” she says. Gundappa has not spared any land that overlooks her home, it is crowded with indigenous varieties of hibiscus, rose, karunakundala and other flowering plants. Her favourite, though are the many fruit trees that grow in her front yard, “I grow guava, sugar-apples, bananas and papayas. Each of these fruits is favoured by one of my family members,” she smiles.

The homemaker is particular about organic food, and is proud that her backyard and front yard help in getting easy access to some of her family’s favourite fruits. This love for growing their own fruit led Gundappa and her engineer husband to purchase a plot of land near Kenchanpura, a short distance of 5 km from their house, and turn it into a mango farm. 

“We have jackfruit, mango, gooseberry, sapota, rose apple, water apple, lemon and black plums on our land,” she says. Collectively her land has more than 100 trees, but she doesn’t sell a single fruit. “My family usually consumes them at home, or I give them away to my friends. I can’t bring myself to capitalise on nature,” she said, adding that even the trees in her front yard are frequented by neighbours when they bear fruits.

She believes it is all about creating a healthy ecosystem around yourself. “I am thankful that I have the time to tend to my plants, to look at the birds and butterflies that visit my garden. Whatever worries I have, they melt away,” she smiles, adding that her garden sometimes invites snakes, but she has learnt how and when to enter the space to avoid conflict, “It is their space that we encroach, so we must be mindful of that.”