In a first, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) parks across the city will be adorned with tulip flowers in addition to the usual New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area this winter.

“This season(winter), there will be double the number of tulips in the city as against 1.5 lakh planted last year in the New Delhi area.  Three lakh tulip plants – a lakh for DDA and another two lakh for NDMC have been procured at the instructions of Delhi  Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena,” the LG office said on Tuesday.

The increase in plantation of tulips and other flowers across the city is in line with the emphasis given by the LG’s goal of turning the national capital into a ‘city of flowers’, it said, adding  five hundred tulip bulbs have also been planted in the Raj Niwas campus for the first time.

The LG office said tulip flowers in yellow, white, orange, purple, blue, pink and red colour shades and other varieties of seasonal flowers like Petunia, Salvia, Cineraria, Antirrhinum, Poppy, Verbena, Dianthus, Hollyhock, Nasturtium, Coreopsis, Pansy, Lianum, etc will be planted soon at prominent locations for full public view.

While tulips will be planted in 65 locations, other winter flowers would adorn the capital at 91 locations, it said.

“Tulips would be planted in prominent places like the diplomatic area of Shanti Path, Talkatora Garden, Windsor Place, Central Park (Connaught Place) , Mandi House, Akbar Road, Chanakyapuri, Lodhi Garden and Nehru Park, RML round about etc. Besides these above locations, under the Winter Action Plan, seasonal flowers of various species would be planted at vantage points and parks with high footfall,” it added.

Saxena over the years chaired meetings and discussions with Horticulture Divisions of various Departments and Agencies and their future preparedness with regards to flower plantation and other activities, his office said.

“The LG had issued instructions for double the number of tulips to be sourced and planted this season.  In this regard, he had taken up the matter of sourcing tulips with the Lt Governors of J&K and Ladakh, and the Government of Himachal Pradesh,” it said.

The LG had asked NDMC to source it from these UTs or Himachal Pradesh, rather than sourcing them from abroad.

Saxena had also asked agencies like MCD, DDA and NDMC who own and operate nurseries of their own to try and achieve temperatures between 10-12 degree centigrade, in their nurseries, so that tulip saplings and bulbs could be nurtured in Delhi itself.  He had also asked for the possibility of sourcing and planting Daffodils in the forthcoming season.

On the instructions of the LG, the NDMC has taken an initiative to establish a unit of the foreign flowers at Lodhi Garden.

According to NDMC, almost 54,000 imported tulip bulbs were harvested this year, out of which 52,000 has been sent to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology in Palampur for further research. Two thousand bulbs are currently in the two chambers at the unit in Lodhi Gardens.