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Srinagar’s iconic garden with 1.6 million tulips opens for visitors on March 19
Officials said the garden, which has become an important icon of Kashmir tourism, will be opened by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday afternoon
Srinagar’s Tulip Garden, one of Asia’s biggest flower plots with 1.6 million bulbs in different stages of bloom, will be thrown open to the public on March 19.
Officials said the garden, which has become an important icon of Kashmir tourism, will be opened by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday afternoon.
“Of the 1.6 million flower bulbs, 25%-30% are in full bloom. There are other spring flowers as well like hyacinths and daffodils,” said deputy director of the floriculture department, Shayiq Rasool.
To cater to the rush of visitors and prevent chock-a-block jams, the police department has decided to allow one-way traffic on Boulevard Road for at least one week starting Sunday. On their return, the garden goers will have to take a detour through Foreshore Road.
With 68 varieties of tulips, the visitors this year will also be enjoying water features like a high-rise fountain on the top of the terraced garden. The newly added features will augment the magnificent 30-hectare terraced Tulip Garden at Siraj Bagh on the banks of majestic Dal Lake.
At least 60 gardeners are working round the clock at the garden to make sure that the bloom of the sea of flowers is properly taken care of. The garden is divided into 36 plots with 16 to 18 beds in each. There are three parks inside the garden as well, where visitors can sit and have an immersive experience. Various small ornamental plants adorn the sides of numerous by-lanes of the garden.
Usually, tulip bloom starts by late March. The average life of a tulip is 20 days and can stretch up to 25 with overall bloom getting extended by adding late-blooming varieties. The temperature-sensitive flowers need mercury to stay above 15 degrees and below 25 degrees Celsius.
“The garden is opening earlier this time owing to high temperatures in March. The winter this year was relatively dry. There is no fixed calendar as in the past, we have also opened the garden in mid-March or even in April, depending on how cool or warm spring remains,” Rasool said.
The garden played an important part in wooing more tourists during the spring last year, particularly after the Covid disruptions in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the garden saw 3.6 lakh visitors, including tourists and locals, against 2.3 lakh in 2021. Last year, over 26.7 lakh tourists had visited Kashmir, and the arrivals this year are also looking encouraging. February itself saw more than one lakh tourists thronging Kashmir, especially its three known destinations of Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonmarg.
The opening of Tulip Garden is expected to open the flood gates of tourists into Srinagar as well. The authorities are also mulling to add a cherry blossom garden on the pattern of world-famous Japanese sakura parks.
Kashmir’s connection with tulips traces its origin back to hundreds of years when the flowers were grown on muddy rooftops of houses. Gradually, people started planting them in kitchen gardens and flower beds. In 2005-06, the then state government decided to convert Siraj Bagh into a regal tulip garden, keeping up with Kashmir’s historical ties with the flower variety.
