Project Green Balconies Retirement gift: Dr. Ranas’ Garden of Life

Project GreenBalconies : Know the story

Early 2019, we were working on maturing the ideas behind SustainX when GreenBalconies was formed by pure love for nature and with a thought of providing something long lasting to working people living in big-city apartments with tiny balconies and off-late cherishing their childhood memories of planting trees and catching bees in their native homes.

Just two years ago, I knew nothing about gardening and plantation. I remember feeling dumb (even after possessing a masters’ degree) for not knowing names of the trees planted around the walkway. And here I was, designing balconies, dealing with gardeners, working with govt. authorities on core technical Miyawaki plantation and doing commercial projects. This was thrilling and astonishing too.

This time for Rana sir’s retirement gift balcony setup, I interviewed his wife, Dr. Rana to get a thorough understanding of his day to day routine. He prefers lemon tea in morning (Lemon grass), does yoga every day (green turf), eats one banana each day (banana peel make a good liquid fertilizer) and is very fond of spending time with nature. But their L shaped 10*3 feet balcony carried a deserted look with just a clothes drying rack there.

Mrs. Rana wanted an earthen look and no plastic pots that goes with SustainX values as well. She loves white so no bright colors. Knowing the couple’s childhood memories and early married life memories of gardening was an assurance of its kind that they both will be extremely caring plant-parents. Our plants will be in safe hands.

At Green Balconies, we never looked for high volume commercial assignments, we want to give people (esp. city people) pleasure of growing their own food, we wish to connect kids with the food they eat; so in our garden setup framework we added practices like – naming your Pet Plant, regularly talking to plants, Kid in the house will be care-taker of at least one plant etc. We received encouraging feedback of these practices; one of the kids shared the joy of growing okra and potatoes in 2*4 feet pot.

For Dr. Rana, we planned to grow veggie plants in polished wooden blocks (1*4 feet) and host their veggies like okra, brinjals etc. ; One vertical stand to host their herbs.

Additionally, setup two big fiber pots to host trees- one mango and one pomegranate tree, – Two trees growing in your balcony , isn’t it amazing.

A miniature garden to add that charm and attract kids. All garden miniatures are a big hit with kids. White chalk painted stones to add character. The artist in me actually took me a mile ahead and get crazy – I picked up a broken branch of a tree from the roadside, cleaned it and lightly polished to add to the earthen look of the garden. All the stands and hangings are made of rust free metal. Worked with a local carpenter to carve the name plate of their garden lovingly named as – Garden of Life.

From choice of plants to the look, everything was carefully crafted based on lifestyle of the Ranas’.

Have a look..

Within a day, Rana family became famous in their apartment tower. Not only was Mr. Rana touched, neighbors’ kids’ started requesting them for a visit to their garden.

Let’s hear from Ranas…

For next few months, we assisted them in maintaining their garden and also shared method of preparing liquid fertilizer at home with every day fruit and veggies peels.

Am proud to mention that ‘Garden of Life’ is ‘Thriving’ due to ‘Love and Care’ it received from Ranas.