Ooty: As ‘Onam’, the festival of flowers, aroma and tradition, is just a week away, the flower traders here in the hills have turned busy as the demand for Nilgiris grown flowers has begun to soar up.
While it is needless to mention about the role of flowers during ‘Onam’ festival as flowers in different colours and varieties are being used to lay “pookalam” and related decorative activities, there is yearning to add more colours this year and charm to the ‘pookalam’.
Thus, there is a premium on Nilgiris-grown flowers that come in handy to add more fascination to the ‘Onam’ flower carpets and other decorations that day.
Stating that the demand for hill grown carnation and gerbera flowers has already increased, Mr K.Mani, a flower trader here said that Keralites generally used flowers such as chrysanthemum and roses to lay ‘pookalam’.
However, there has been a change in this trend over the past few years as they evince interest in buying hill grown cut flowers to pep up the flower carpets, to add more charm to the flower architecture for ‘Onam’, he added.
“Since ‘pookalam’ competitions are generally organised across Kerala, the hill-grown flowers like carnation and gerbera, which are known for their brilliant colours and large petals, that add elegance to the ‘pookalam’ are being sourced from Nilgiris. That’s the reason why there is demand for Ooty grown flowers and, of course, the price of these flowers have doubled now,” he added.
