Is this possibly the most beautiful nursery in Delhi ?

Is this possibly the most beautiful nursery in Delhi ?

Confession time.

All these years I have lived in Delhi and never been to the beautiful Sunder Nursery (pun time *) but thanks to my friend Catriona Child, that omission was corrected at the weekend.

What a place.

The government run nursery is at the back of Humayun’s Tomb – next to the car park, in fact – and is architecturally and historically part of this bigger complex.  Apparently it was shamefully neglected for years, but now there is a lot of renovation work afoot, largely thanks to the brilliant Aga Khan Foundation.  Picture if you will – but I think every single person in Delhi has been there except me – a (now) landscaped garden, with water bodies and neat paths and tombs and little pavilions scattered all over the place, and a bonsai pavilion and tucked away in the corner, a great nursery, with very reasonably priced plants and seeds, and you have the Sunder Nursery.

The Central Axis being brought back to life.

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Isn’t this lovely?

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Seeds being dried (below)

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The bonsai garden (below) with (and I quote the information panels) “playful and staggered platforms”.

Quite.

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Pavilions (above) and ruins (below) – absolutely charming.

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As for the nursery bit of all this –  well, they have masses of very reasonably priced plants and seeds.  I bought 4 lemon saplings for Rs 50 a throw, which is brilliant.

Courteous service, lots of filling out of proper invoices by hand, with name, address and phone number – that kind of thing – then paying somewhere else, where the whole process is repeated.  But the place is so pretty and the staff are so sweet that it hardly matters.

Oh.

Yes.

The pun *  Sunder = beautiful in Hindi.

So very appropriate.

The nursery and the monuments are open from 9-5.  Nursery closed between 1-2pm for lunch.

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