City’s green-fingered aficionados recently met at a plant swap event in the city. The free-plant exchange event witnessed young college students, home makers, working professionals coming together with their prized possession.

Gardening enthusiasts traded seeds of fruits, vegetables, herbs, plants and plant cuttings with fellow plant lovers. Along with common plants such as dracaena, coleus, gerbera, dianthus, sansevieria, howarthia, there were many exotic varieties to choose from. To meet gardening expert Anjana Khilnanai was another added advantage for the participants, as Khilnani talked at length about kitchen compost to improve the soil productivity and avoid chemical fertilizers.

Brain child of plant lover and digital content creator Ratika Khandelwal, the event was hosted in association with Rooted and Paudha Foundation. Ratika shared, “We hosted our first plant swap event in December last year with lot of apprehensions, but, it turned out to be a big success. People just loved the idea of exchanging their plants, share garden tips and meet like-minded plant lovers. Keeping this in mind, we are back with the second edition of it. Adding more to it, we had a small session on bio enzymes, composting by Anjana Khilnani and Lokesh Ghiya so that people can learn more about gardening.” Nikhil Soni from Paudha Foundation too adds, “If you have plants in excess, you can distribute them and get new ones for yourselves, that too without paying anything. It was quite an interactive session with so many people coming together sharing their passion for plants. Hope to have more such events at a regular interval.”

A participant Rakhi, who works in a bank said, “I am a beginner in gardening and have been associated with a whatsApp groups of plant lovers and got to know through the group about such a unique event. I also brought my six-year-old son so that he becomes more conscious about environment. Best part of the event was to learn more about organic gardening and composting kitchen waste at home.”