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Friday March 29, 2024

Colours and fragrance attract big crowds to flower show

By our correspondents
February 24, 2017

Pakistan Annual Flower Show 2017 opens at DHA Sea View Park

Fragrance from multicoloured and eye-catching blossoms filled the air around the Sea View beach as the 66th Pakistan Annual Flower Show 2017 attracted a huge crowd on its inaugural day.

Along with flower sellers, green activists also garnered the attention of nature lovers, many of them coming along with their children, at the DHA Sea View Park on Thursday.

“We visit this show every year as it gives us a chance to let our son get familiar with distinctive flowers and plants,” said Bilal Raza, who had arrived with her wife and seven-year-old boy. “Parents have an obligation to inculcate in their children the love for nature so that they could develop an eco-friendly behaviour.”

A member of the Pakistan Bonsai Society, Rubi Salman, said her society was promoting love for plants. “The society on its own conducts regular workshops on the first Saturday of every month to spread the knowledge and promote the art of nurturing bonsai specimens,” she said.

“Our gurus teach the art of creating a miniature replica of a mature tree or a group of trees which can be found in nature,” she said. “The bonsai artist attempts to create that replica by changing the illusion of maturity.”

At the four-day exhibition, Syed Majid, a member of the Cactus & Succulent Society of Pakistan, said that in a city like Karachi where people faced an acute water shortage in different areas, it was much easier to nurture cactus as it required little water. “To nurture a cactus, you need as much water as a normal human being would need to take a bath,” he grinned.

Regarding the thick stems of cactus covered in spines without leaves, he said the spines were “kind of a defence for the plant as it would fail an animal to attack it.”

An elderly woman, Mrs Qaiser Mirza, also set up her stall at the show. “I’m selling my plants here for the first time. I’ve a hobby of nurturing plants.”

Flower seller Aslam Suleman, who sets up his stall every year in the show, said, “This exhibition provides us lucrative opportunities to sell flowers in bulk and develop contacts with customers.”

Being held in collaboration with the Defence Housing Authority and the Cantonment Board Clifton, the event will run till February 26.

The Horticultural Society of Pakistan has been holding this mega event regularly since 1949, and it has now become the biggest flower show of Pakistan, according to a press release issued on Tuesday.

The show is attended by a large number of people from all walks of life from Karachi and other parts of the country. Affiliated clubs and societies, including the Ladies Horticultural Club, Floral Art Society, Ikebana International, Ikenobo Study Group, Amateur Gardeners Club, Orchid Society of Pakistan, Pakistan Bonsai Society, Cactus & Succulent Society of Pakistan, Sogetsu, Floral Art Study Group and the Tree Club, are displaying their floral, rare plants and model gardens. Various other civic bodies, private and multinational groups will also be competing in the 66th annual show.