THE MUGHAL GARDEN

Image ID: 2404284

Caption : The Mughal Garden at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, will be opened for the public for a month from today. During the colonial period when Lord Hardinge was the Viceroy of India, it is said, Lady Hardinge, was fascinated by the gardens in Kashmir Valley, and had wished architect Edward Lutyens, who designed the Rashtrapati Bhavan, to lay the garden in that style. For his work on this garden which covers an area of six hectares, and is in terraces, he derived inspiration from the Mughal Gardens of Kashmir, the garden of the Taj Mahal and the Persian and Indian miniature paintings. The main garden is long and rectangular in shape. A network of fountains and water ponds has been carefully laid, keeping in mind the Mughal style of gardening. A wide variety of flowers present a dazzling spectacle. The gardens, that contain nearly one million seedlings, 250 varieties of roses, 20 kinds of bougain villaea, viscaria, teptosyne, sweet william, oxalis and several annuals and perennials alongwith 80 varieties of winter flowers, present a dazzling spectacle. It is opened to the general public only for a month every year. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt