The Boga-Joba Juxtaposition


Boga = White, Joba = Hibiscus Flower
 
My Mom is passionate about gardening. A
little too passionate I would say. She has turned our front yard into a mini
botanical garden. The only piece missing is the Tall Redwood, else if possible,
she would have planted that as well. Strolling in the garden is sometimes
dangerous as all kind of Chameleons, Ants and snakes have now taken permanent
residency in my Mom
s mini rainforest.

The hospital near my home has an exquisite
range of seasonal flowers. I used to wonder if my mom was deliberately falling
sick, just  to go there and admire the
collection. Or if lucky, coax one of the nurses to give her a stem, which she
would gleefully plant in the garden.

She loves flowers and wants every species
in her yard. So when mistakenly I showed her a picture White Hibiscus (Joba),
she was hell bent on getting one. Although white hibiscus is quite common in
Bangalore, it isn
t the case in Jorhat.

Every day, my mom would badger me on phone,
reminding me to get a Boga Joba phool the next time I go home. She is quite an expert
in perfectly breaking off stems in the right places, I am worse than a novice. 

There was a long row of white Hibiscus in
my office garden. Often I had tried to get a branch, but either the branch won
t break or the watchful eyes of gardener
would scare me away. I mean, imagine me running with a white hibiscus plant in
my hand while the gardener is chasing me with a hose pipe. 

Even after a lot of trial and error  (and scratches and sore thumb) I couldnt get one and till this date Mom doesnt falter to emotionally blackmail me.

25 thoughts on “The Boga-Joba Juxtaposition

  1. My mother was an avid gardener in her day too, but that wasn't passed on to me, I'm sorry to say. I can kill anything! LOL Hibiscus are so beautiful. Hope you manage to get your branch.

  2. Awww….do try and get one White Hibiscus for your Mom no? I love her passion!! N also share that mini rainforest's picture! 🙂

  3. I am trying to plant some kitchen garden to grow vegetables, greens, etc. So far only one weed has grown in that pot! 🙂

    Destination Infinity
    PS: Go buy a hibiscus sapling from a nursery, no?

  4. This post made me miss my white hibiscus plant even more 🙁 I had one that was doing so well till 2 years ago, but is now almost gone…every morning I check on it, nothing, nada, no activity happening in the few branches that remain. Maybe I need your Mom's blessings, Rajlakshmi! By the way, we too get snakes sometimes in our tiny garden, which is probably not as lush as your mom's…twice they have also come inside the home 🙂 But hey, just because of that I am not removing those nice bamboo trees which everyone says attract snakes!

    Beauty Interprets, Expresses, Manifests the Eternal

  5. I imagined that gardener running behind u with hose pipe 🙂 coming back here via A to Z after long and my mom is mad abt gardening too not this much though but I love ur mom's passion
    Good luck

  6. You could have posted a picture of your mom's garden at Jorhat.Like you I am afraid of creeping and crawling creatures and would like potted flower plants or where planted on ground the bottom portion swept clean frequently.Why do you want to filch a boga-joba from office garden when you can get it in a nursery?

  7. That's too bad. I have hibiscus in my yard but they aren't doing very well. No white ones. I think they are in too shady a spot. Last year we had more than usual, then a big tree limb fell on the batch and broke some. We will see what we get this summer.

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