Parakeet steals tiger rose show

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All roads will lead to the rose garden on Sunday when the weatherman promises a bright and sunny day.

Saturday’s rain may have played spoilsport on opening day and a couple of innovative attractions like a ‘tiger rose’ exhibit may not have panned out as planned. Even so, the colourful roses took centre stage in their splendid thousands at the 2-day annual rose show at Government Rose Garden.

A 12-foot high panchavarnakili (parrot of five colours) was the stellar attraction at a show that has become the highlight of the celebrated summer season in the Nilgiris. To take its lustrous shape, the large Indian parakeet exhibit required as many as 10,000 roses and some cupress leaves. By the rose count, the panda, the giraffe, the rabbit, the bull, the tiger and the Sriragam Ranganatha temple model were lesser exhibits since they needed only about 6,000 roses each to build. They were splendid nevertheless although the much hyped tiger seemed somewhat out of kilter.

The GRG, which boasts of 3,800 varieties of roses that bloom so readily in the climate of the queen of hill stations, did not appear at its best this year. Tourists complained that too many of the 25,000 plants seemed to droop. Administration officials, however, put down the problem to heavy rains that lashed over the last week. It was generally acknowledged that the exhibits, which are the cynosure of the eyes of all visitors, took the breath away even amidst the wet and gloom..

The rangoli of roses never fails to catch the eye and there was something for the palate in the form of a rose cake made by teenager S. Sanjana, student of St Hilda’s school.