Introducing our plants
Welcome to Lumbini!
We are the gardens; known by the name, Lumbini Buddha Garden!
This time we take pride in introducing some of our senior mother-like plants. All of them are already mother, so perhaps we should call them the Mother Tree now onwards?! All featured trees and bamboo are native to Nepal.
These two are our oldest trees, called Simal in Nepali and scientific name is Bombax ceiba. They are known as Silk-Cotton Tree or Kapok tree in English. We reckon this tree on the left side has turned to its 60. For a tree it is a prime age but unfortunately, it's not doing that well. We do not know the reason behind it but our guess is that some infections have taken place and has stunted its branches from the typical Simal-like growth. However, its younger sibling (on right side, flowering), is approximately 50 years old and is doing well. This Spring, younger sibling decorated itself in all red-bloom and here is one of the better pictures our staff took. But believe us, pictures do not do justice to plants' and fail to capture the beauty! We have at least one dozen flowering Simal tree in our garden.
This is our oldest fig tree, approximately 30 years old. Its Ficus racemosa (or F. glomerata) or cluster fig tree in English, Dumri in Nepali and Udumbar(a) in Sanskrit. Most other siblings or generations it has produced are half that age. We have nearly half a dozen cluster fig trees fruiting in the season that attract myriad of wildlife. Including this we have one dozen species of figs, including Bedu – a rarer fig of Nepal and not seen so commonly.
This is our Sissoo tree, it is also called Indian Rosewood in English and Dalbergia sissoo is its botanical name. It was in fact planted 26 years ago together with several others, most others have given way because some disease spread through and killed most of its siblings. This one and few others have survived the pandemic. There are over 100 such trees that lay scattered all over the garden.
This is our special tree, it is called Khair in Nepali, Acacia or Cutch Tree in English and Acacia catechu is its scientific name. Believe it or not this tree is only 20 years old but is one of them with robust personality. A younger sibling grows nearby.
Meet our Sindure or Rohini plant, also known as Mallotus philippensis. It’s a rather slow growing so you may find it hard to believe if we say it is same age as the Acacia. We do not have many of these, only two large trees that flower/seed every year are spotted in our property.
The oldest bamboo we have is 16 years old, most are younger. In total we have almost a dozen varieties of bamboo in our garden. Our bamboo fresh shoots and marinated bamboo come from within our gardens.
