APD rolls out 10-day garden fair, draws massive crowd

Bengaluru: The Association of People with Disabilities (APD) organizes a 10-day garden fair and orchid mela on Friday. A wide range of ornamental plants, indoor plants, cacti, palms, fruit plants, medicinal herbs, and vibrant orchid varieties have been displayed in this event. To see the event, massive crowds have been turning out to attend the festival. In fact, the gardens are maintained by people with disabilities trained by APD.

Visitors have got an opportunity to see workshops on kitchen, herb, and terrace gardening. They get a chance to interact with the experts and know how to successfully do indoor gardening. They can explore stalls offering garden tools, seeds, saplings, and eco-friendly products such as coco peat and manure.

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Ganesh Hegde, Director of Environment and Horticulture at APD, explained about the organization’s Horticulture Training Programme designed for individuals with physical and mental disabilities. “This training complements therapy, aiding physical and mental health recovery. We are actively mobilizing trainees from villages around Bijapur, Davanagere, and Chikkaballapur,” he said. The fair, which runs until December 22, drew gardening enthusiasts on its opening day, many flocking to admire and purchase orchids.

The Horticulture Training Programme is a three-month course that trains individuals with skills in landscaping, floriculture, tissue culture, and garden management. After that, trained youth are placed in organizations as garden specialists and supervisors, said Lakshman Reddy, a 38-year-old gardener with a disability. Hegde added that APD has trained over 4,500 youth from both rural and urban Karnataka in horticulture techniques.

“This programme has helped a lot of people with physical disabilities, achieving more than an 80% placement rate,” he said. The fair also features workshops to encourage and educate gardening enthusiasts.