Nusrat Khawaja overcame the harsh weather of the UAE to create a paradise of her own with drought-resistant plants.
Khawaja's garden is a thriving example of how you can create a colourful yard in a short span of time by growing regionally adapted perennials that retain their hues even during summers, when most flowering annuals and exotic perennials are past their prime.
Nusrat's approach to gardening is simple — she goes for plants that can take a lot of beating from the relentless UAE heat and places them in spots where they feel happy and at home. Gardening in a hot and humid place where the soil has nothing going for it is always a challenge, and for Nusrat it was even more challenging because being new to Dubai, she had to start from scratch.
A learning experience
"We moved to Dubai from Greece in July 2006 and it took me a while to understand the local climate, which is a weird mixture of desert and tropical conditions. The whole year has been a learning experience for me.
"My garden in Greece had a lot of spring bulbs, such as tulips, narcissus and muscari, but here I have to choose plants that can handle this climate. As far as the gardening season is concerned, Dubai winter is like the European summer — you can do gardening here only from October to March. Rest of the year, you are just trying to help everything survive," Nusrat says.
It is a relatively small garden — neat and manageable and yet, packed with colours. Fast-growing climbers that clamber up the wall give the garden a maturity beyond its years. Looking at the abundance of foliage and colourful flowers, it is difficult to believe that the garden is less than one-and-a-half years old.
When the Khawajas shifted to the villa, the yard was a dry patch of dead grass punctuated with stumps of dead shrubs and climbers. The villa had been unoccupied for three months and everything in the yard had dried up.
Even though Nusrat was greatly disappointed when she first saw the barren yard, she was also happy in a way because it meant she had a blank canvas and was free to choose her colour palette.
The previous owners had left behind a legacy of an almost-dead Jatropha shrub and a couple of Rangoon creepers (Quisqualis indica). "We were about to pull them out but had second thoughts. I am so glad that we let them remain because the shrub and the two creepers are now doing so well, " Nusrat says.
The first lot
Five saplings of yellow bells (Tecoma stans) planted along the back border of the front lawn were among the first lot of perennials to be planted in the yard. The saplings are now densely branched shrubs, bearing fragrant yellow flowers and rich green foliage that retain their appeal throughout the year.
Although the garden is young, drought-tolerant ornamental shrubs such as Jatropha and Tecoma have given it maturity beyond its years. These fast growing shrubs have already grown taller than the compound wall, giving it permanence, shade, privacy and year-round colour.
Nusrat enjoys growing plants from seeds — she consults Thompson and Morgan seed data bank on the internet to get tips on how to sow a particular seed. In fact, most of the annuals in her yard have come from seed packets.
However, three butterfly pea vines (Clitoria ternatea) that provide ample shade along the entrance and the front yard have an interesting origin.
"The butter pea seeds germinated on their own and are now huge vines. They do not seem to mind the intense heat and have done well all summer, producing loads of flowers and pods. You have to pinch the pods at regular intervals to encourage more flowering. The seeds contained in mature pods are easy to germinate — just soak them in water overnight and then put them in soil and they should germinate in a week. However, you should not plant too many of this hardy creeper because it grows very fast and takes up a lot of space," Nusrat says.
Blooming bright
Intermingling with the blue flowers of butterfly pea are the brilliant pink and white flowers of Rangoon creeper. This attractive climber with hanging clusters of colourful blossoms and lush foliage puts up a magnificent display throughout summer. The robust climber is fragrant and fills the yard with a sweet scent at night.
The small space makes it extremely important that the plants perform well, which is why even the annuals have been chosen for their hardiness and heat tolerance. During winters, the two perennial borders along the compound walls come alive with dazzling seasonal blooms.
Tucked among the shrubs and perennials, petunias make a charming display in beds. At one end, the bed is marked by the hot pink and white Madagascar periwinkles (Catharanthus roseus).
Splash of wonder
An easy-to-grow plant for beds and borders, periwinkles continue to produce abundant blooms even when the weather gets hot. With their glossy green foliage, they provide a wonderful splash of glowing colours throughout the growing season.
In a nearby border, clumps of brilliant red cockscomb (Celosia cristata) and silvery dusty miller vie for attention. The deep velvety crimson of cockscomb stands out in the backdrop of lush green grass.
The silvery ash leaves of dusty miller (Senecio cineraria) provide a quiet foil for brilliantly coloured petunias, cockscombs and nasturtiums. This drought-tolerant foliage plant not only fills the void in flowerbeds, but also makes a stunning accent plant to set off floral borders and grass.
At the far end of the border, Nusrat has planted kalanchoes in sparkling shades of red and magenta in a raised bed. With their delicate, lacy white flowers, sweet alyssums provide a dramatic fringe to set off the brilliantly coloured kalanchoes, which thrive in this partially shaded part of the garden. Fast-spreading alyssums have been used in several beds as a filler plant to tie together the annual borders. The tiny white flowers have a sweet fragrance.
Busy lizzie (Impatiens) in shades of reds, pinks, lilacs and white can be seen blooming in several beds and containers. An excellent shade plant, it thrives under the dappled shade of the shrubs. Another shade-loving plant, Garden Balsam (Impatiens balsamina), also thrives in the shade of the side yard. This tall annual provides an attractive vertical accent at the back of the border. The red, salmon pink and white flowers of the Garden Balsam attract lots of bees and butterflies.
Another shade-loving plant — the tobacco (Nicotiana) took longer than others to start flowering. The shady conditions in the side yard somehow did not promote flowering, even as the plants continued to grow and became a metre tall. But as soon as the days started getting longer, the tall flowering tobacco started producing profuse numbers of large tubular flowers in white, lilac and pink. These bloom at night and fill the air with their sweet scent.
For Nusrat, her garden is like a transition space between the outside world and her home "When I come home from outside, I like to go to my garden and spend some time with my plants before entering the house — it is so relaxing and peaceful," she says.
Love of labour
Even though gardening takes up a lot of her time, Nusrat enjoys every moment. She makes it a point to hose down her plants thoroughly after a dust storm, as she has observed that the sand particles when allowed to stay on leaves have an abrasive and desiccating effect on the plants. She avoids using insecticides in her garden because most of them contain poisonous chemicals. Whenever she spots any plant pests, she hoses them down with water and the method seems to work.
The garden soil has improved as cow manure was sprinkled everywhere, particularly on the beds. NPK fertiliser is also applied two to three times a year, but Nusrat feels that it is better to underfertilise rather than adding too much of chemical to the soil as it can burn the plants' roots.
Homemade compost
She has converted a laundry bin into a compost bin, where she throws all the peels from the kitchen except citrus fruit peels, as they do not decompose quickly. She layers the peels with readymade compost and once the bin is filled, she leaves the contents for two months to rot completely before using the homemade compost in her flowerbeds.
According to Nusrat, gardening in this part of the world is not expensive, provided you stick to the drought-tolerant perennials and avoid exotic species that require a lot of attention. "If you select your plants wisely, you can have a green patch all year round," she says.
— Chandana Roy is a UAE-based gardening enthusiast
Fabulous flowers: Nusrat Khawaja's yard is her pride and joy. Realising the drawbacks of the hot UAE climate, Khawaja picked drought-resistant plants that also spell aesthetic splendour.
