Ooty has long been thronged by nature lovers and there is no doubt that its natural beauty is incomparable to any other hill station in the region. However Ooty also has a lot to offer to history aficionados in terms of its rich colonial past, but in tour packages these historic places are given a second preference, so one has to tour a lot on his own to visit them.
The most striking of all the colonial era places in Ooty that I found was the Government Botanical Gardens (a.k.a. Ooty botanical gardens). Laid out in 1847 the 22-acre Botanical Garden is lush, green, and well-maintained. These gardens house around a 1000 species of both exotic and indigenous plants, shrubs, ferns, trees, herbal and bonsai plants. It also houses what is claimed to be a 20 million year old fossilized tree. The Gardens consist of several lawns with flowering plants, ponds with lilies, beds of flowers and ferns laid out in an Italian style and a variety of medicinal plants as well.
Originally it was made with the intention to supply the European residents in Ooty with vegetables at reasonable cost for a monthly subscription fee. However this Endeavour did not work out and in early 1847, a fund was raised by means of donations and subscriptions with a vision to form a horticultural societyand a public gardenThe architect who was selected for this task was William Graham McIvor, it took him 10 years to complete the layout of the garden.
The gardens are laid out on sloping hills and the entrance is at the bottom of the hill so you have to climb your way through to tour the ascending gardens. During your ascent you will also come across numerous nurseries placed in a series of terraces and glass-houses constructed for the introduction and breeding of exotic plants.
The garden also houses a conservatory, it was constructed in 1912 with the objective of grouping various flowering plants. Some of the finest looking flowers dwell here.
If you visit the gardens in the summer you might be lucky enough to catch the famed flower show held in the botanical gardens, we visited Ooty during the monsoon so we missed out on that. I was also a bit disappointed that I had to tour the gardens in a rush as I entered the gardens quite late in the afternoon and closing time was just around the corner. Nevertheless I enjoyed every bit of it.
