Mr. William Frederick Durr all set to plant his dream

My visit to the Dharma Vana Arboretum Nursery, turned out to be a memorable experience, with Mr. William Frederick Durr, Director of the Arboretum taking us around and showing us various interesting plants with utmost patience and passion. The nursery itself looked like an arboretum as he is preparing to plant over 400 acres of land earmarked for an arboretum devoted to semi-arid tree species.

We were first greeted by heaps (hillocks) of compost derived from coconut shells and we felt very happy to see coconut waste being utilized productively. Our attachment to coconuts stems from the fact that we hail from Godavari district famous for coconut plantations. Coconuts are `currency' for us. We saw several kinds of several plants. We saw bamboos planted color after color making a sort of `tunnel'. Lotus and water lillies are grown in cement rings placed in a water tank. Each variety is planted in a ring to maintain isolation. Already there are white, yellow and purple ones. It would be a marvelous sight when the entire tank is filled with colorful lillies in circles.

Dr. Durr scouts mountains and valleys for the `lost species'. He rediscovered several species that are once declared to be extinct and saved them from real extinction. His mission is indeed a great and timely effort in the wake of people talking about `climatic change' and species extinction.