We are all back to work after a long, long weekend.
As I get ready to paint the house later this month when the rest of the family would be away for a week, I’m exploring my options. Just thinking of getting one of the outer walls stenciled in a flower pattern. What do you think? Have you stenciled any of your walls? If so, how did you do it and where did you get the stencils from?
Who doesn’t love a green, blooming balcony? There are hundreds of blogs that list tips and tricks to bring the picture-perfect image to your balcony. But, we all know it takes a lot more than pictures to sow and harvest herbs on a windowsill. I’ve just spent hours sifting through scores of urban gardening blogs to find a few that are helpful to novice gardeners.
My motive was to dig out blogs by urban Indian gardeners, but I was successful in finding only two that fit my criteria - frequency of updates, pictures, and well-documented steps and conducive conditions for growing plants.
Geek Gardener - is replete with information on container gardening and various varieties of vegetables to grow in a particular month in India. Despite the low frequency of posts, Geek Gardener is an excellent resource for growing vegetables in a tropical climate. Every post has pictures of plants at very stage from sowing to saplings and flowering to finally, harvesting the produce. The pictures are like a step-by-step guide for a novice gardener.
Zucchini
The Urban Gardener: Sunita’s obsession with greens is evident from her blog, The Urban Gardener. The site has a good mix of vegetables and flowering plants. I’m slightly biased towards sites with pictures as this is a hobby that is visually motivating. The Urban Gardener ranks high in the “good pictures” area.
Sunset: An unusual entry for a blog list. But what we do without this site and its encouraging how-tos. If you’ve not heard of Sunset magazine before, then I swear, you’ve missed something in life. Just kidding 
Stop reading and hop over to the site!
Life on the Balcony: I’ve saved the best for the last. Though Fern Richardson lives in southern California, there is a lot to learn from her blog for urban gardeners in India. A blog with a professional look, good categorization, easy navigability, and above all, frequently updated, makes it a must-have in your Reader.
Veggies to grow this season
If you are keen what the rest of the world grows through the year, here are a few of my favorites:
Japanese Gardener for the enticing look of veggies.
Singapore Plants Lover for the colourful flowers and novel containers
Totally Inept Balcony Gardener for the yellow lemons, blooms and creepers
If you have been reading a gardening blog for a while now and find it useful, please leave a link in the comments section for others to benefit.
Image courtesy:
Zucchini - Geek Gardener
Veggies - Life on the Balcony
Do you subscribe to any of the home interiors and decorating magazines, or pick a random bunch off the shelf every month?
Home Decorating magazines
Do you lean towards Elle Decor with its emphasis on stylish living and following the seasonal trends closely? Or do you prefer Good Homes for its easily adaptable decorating and gardening ideas?Or you inspired by the exquisite homes showcased in Society Interiors?
I have a monthly subscription for BBC Good Homes, but read the others such as Society Interiors, Ideal Home and Gardens, Better Interiors and Elle Decor on a regular basis from the library or buying recent issues at cheaper prices.
I’m slightly biased towards Good Homes because it has a glossy feel to it and has the right mix of advertorials and features. Except the home tours which are quite lengthy, the other features are a quick read. I absolutely love their multi-part design series spread over many issues. Good Home is currently running a Decor Lifecycle series.
Society Interiors reads like a architecture book and puts me to sleep.
What I don’t like in the home decor magazines?
Know your audience. Home decorating on a budget sells like hot chips. Seriously. If one has the capacity to blow, let’s say, Rs.10 L on soft furnishings, then one also has the ability hire a really expensive interiors consultant. So why present only accessories and products from high-end stores such as FCML, Atmosphere, which are eye-candy but out of reach for a normal household. For someone looking for doing up their home with limited resources, there are far and few ideas.
Sample this, for instance. A sofa chair by Pinakin Patel from Pinakin for Rs. 52,000 (Elle Decor, August 2009). The Mtouche range of porcelain tiles from FCML Home at Rs.1,300 a sq.ft (Ideal Home and Gardens, September 2009). That way I think Good Homes strikes a good balance of expensive and affordable products such as Snapshot Coasters at Rs.995 a piece from Apartment 9, and Glass Funk Coasters at Rs.600 for four from Silk Road and Beyond or Star Coasters at Rs.1,200 for six from Good Earth.
The home tours are again a drab. They make you drool, no doubt about that. But with the amount of styling that goes in for a shoot to present the image of a picture perfect home, we all know it wouldn’t work in a practical setting.
What works for you and what’s on your reading list every month?
No matter how stylish and elegant modern homes get, I’ll always be fascinated by the traditional Indian architecture. At the risk of repeating myself, I continue with this post
Most houses in the olden times were built on rectangular plots and, in certain places, adjacent homes shared a wall. Vast open spaces inside punctuated by thinnais and mithams, skylight, courtyards, red tiled flooring, huge cylindrical pillars along the mitthams or courtyards, a small hole on either side of the main door to light lamps, and high ceiling supported by wooden beams were some of the common characteristics of these eco-friendly homes. With such years of wisdom going into building of houses, can they ever be wrong? Little wonder there was no dearth of light and air while we feel suffocated, stifled and leave the lights on evening at 9:00 a.m. in a 2,000 sq.ft apartment. What a shame!
Another typical design feature of the old houses in Tamil Nadu was the linear corridor - one could stand at the main door and see the other end of the house. Everything else flowed seamlessly in between with no obstruction as the rooms and courtyards fell on either side of the corridor. Usually, a tulsi plant was what met one’s gaze from the open wooden-carved main door.I regret I don’t have any pictures of our ancestral homes. Maybe this time around, when I visit my grandparents’ I will do a photo shoot before the 100-year-old houses get renovated.
Homes in Chettinad, Kerala and north-western parts of Karnataka such as as Coorg and Mangalore share a common element of design - courtyard. It is known by different names though in different parts such as thotti mane, nadu mittham and mittham.
While scouting for homes that adopted elements of our architecture, I discovered GoodEarth Homes’ Orchard project on Mysore Road.
Courtyard used as an indoor garden
I fell in love with the project (but for the price) as soon as I saw this picture. Isn’t it beautiful - a small green space inside the house that receives sunlight? Imagine waking up to the first streak of sunlight in the morning.
A modern verandah or porch
Long open corridor - where are the pillars?
Vineeta Nair of artnlight featured a traditional home in Palakkad a while ago.
I agree such vast spaces are beyond one’s affordability in metros. But there’s nothing stopping us from incorporating some eco-friendly concepts in apartments/penthouses such as skylights for better illumination. Although it’s tough to implement in normal apartments, penthouses can do this by placing glass on the roof for natural lighting. This can be extended to certain sections of the bathroom as well. I’m sure you agree that no fancy light can compete with natural light.
Chitra Vishwanath is a Bangalore-based eco-friendly architect. Some of her projects use these concepts of natural top lighting, stone arches and no fans. The project she has designed for the Rays uses the courtyard concept.
Have a story to tell about your ancestral home? Write to me with pictures and I’ll be happy to feature it here.
Images:
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