Flowering and fruit trees are fast disappearing from the concrete city, but people cannot easily forget their roots, and some find a touch of green nature in rooftop gardens kept as a hobby. One such enthusiast is Md Abdul Wahab, a retired senior officer of Janata Bank, whose rooftop garden offers a different kind of nature, where the abundance of green lifts the spirits.

Abdul Wahab joined Janata Bank in 1976 and in 1980 began building a house in the Five-Storey Mosque area at Akua Chowrangi crossing in Mymensingh city. In 1997 he started a flower garden on the roof, and from 2000 he added fruit and medicinal trees alongside it.

A visit found some 600 native and foreign plants of about 150 species on the roof, including fruit, flower and medicinal plants. Of these, there are 43 kinds of fruit tree, 45 kinds of flowering plant and 15 kinds of medicinal plant. Thanks to his bank job, he collected them from various parts of the country, and they now display their beauty in colourful pots on the roof.

The fruit trees include:

• 40 mango trees of 20 native and foreign varieties
• two jamun trees, white and black; seven guava trees of strawberry, madhuri and Thai varieties
• three litchi trees of the Mongolbari and China-3 varieties
• one native custard apple, one sharifa, two sour and sweet star fruit, one sweet olive, two coconut and baukul plums
• three latkan trees of various kinds, three pomegranate trees (anar and dalim), three large long gul sapodilla trees
• two China and native oranges, four Thai and native malta, three red and white sweet pomelo, six native and foreign lemon trees
• one rose apple, one native jamrul, two native and hybrid amla, one native amra
• one each of foreign rambutan, apricot, miracle fruit, kiwi, jujube, American avocado, loquat, peanut butter fruit, alubokhara plum, peach, pistachio, wood apple and olive
• two foreign jaboticaba, two foreign blackberry, two native and foreign mulberry, two Egyptian and native figs, one native orboroi, one foreign "mango string"
• two black and green grapes, two Red Lady and native papayas, and four green and yellow dragon fruit plants

The flowering plants include 10 roses, among them yellow, white-purple-Tajmahal and the foreign Milio; five yellow, pink, white and foreign hibiscus; five ixora in red, green, yellow, pink, white and Chinese types; four native and foreign chrysanthemums; two white konokchapa, two white swarnachapa, a white kathalichapa and a white dolonchapa; seven aromatic native and foreign jasmines (jui), two foreign chameli, a white beli and four red and pink oleanders.

There is also a foreign narcissus, two hasnahena, two shiuli, native and foreign gandharaj, four white and yellow kamini, a native periwinkle, a bakul, a foreign barricade jui, three foreign eugenia, three native and foreign allamanda, native and foreign sthalpadma, two foreign datranga, three tagar, a foreign golden shower, four silver queen, a foreign hydrangea, a foreign python, a white tecoma, 12 single and double adenium, two aparajita, four gerberas in various colours, a native marigold, three bougainvillea, a sky-blue camellia, a white ketaki, a white tulip, three tude-tumur, a night queen, 60 foreign orchids and 200 cacti of various colours.

The medicinal plants include a bilimbi, two black pepper plants, two native and foreign drumstick trees, curry leaf, pathorkuchi, mint, bokful, three stevia, panparag, four aloe vera, tulsi, two liquorice, four foreign bonsai, and kadam and pine trees.

The former banker said he has planted trees as a hobby since his teens, when he kept a garden of fruit, flowers and medicinal plants in the family courtyard. "I love doing this work," he said.

Asked whether he sells plants, he said: "Collecting native and foreign plants is my hobby. I did it for pleasure, not to make a commercial profit. But nursery owners across the country know me, and when there are fairs they buy some plants from me. I sell the orchids and cacti very cheaply. Often, when someone I know comes to see the garden, I give plants for free."

He said he tends the garden after the Fajr prayer until noon, and again from the afternoon until after dusk. When he worked at the bank, he tended the plants from 10pm to 11pm after returning from the office.

On collecting plants, he said: "Since 1997, thanks to my bank job, I collected these plants from different parts of the country. The foreign ones I collected from nurseries in Dhaka and elsewhere. Plants were cheap before; now foreign plants cost more." In all, he said, he has spent Tk 12 to 15 lakh on the rooftop garden.

On what he has gained, he said: "I am one hundred percent successful. The garden has plants that many people of this generation have never seen. I love it when people come to see it. Finally, I want to say that to keep the earth liveable, trees are indispensable."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.