Srinagar, Oct 23: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday invited tourists and locals to visit the Chrysanthemum Garden here and make lasting memories as the garden opened for the second consecutive year.
“Not only do I invite people across the country who wish to visit Kashmir, but even more so, our own local residents of Srinagar and surrounding areas. I invite them to come, enjoy the beauty of this garden, take some photographs, make lasting memories, and then head back,” Abdullah told reporters after inaugurating the garden.
He said the objective behind developing the garden was to mark the beginning of the tourism season with a unique attraction that visitors could not find elsewhere.
“Our endeavour has been to give a boost to our tourism season. For many years, you must have seen that at the start of the season, a large number of people come for the Tulip Garden.
“However, during this season, we had nothing distinct or special to show them. Therefore, this Chrysanthemum Garden, Bagh-e-Gul-e-Dawood, was developed by the Department of Floriculture,” he said.
Abdullah said the garden had made significant progress compared to last year and would continue to be developed.
“Moving forward, we will continue to develop it in the same way. A major advantage of this garden is that, while for the Tulip Garden we repeatedly have to import bulbs from outside the country to keep it operational, the plant material for Bagh-e-Gul-e-Dawood is entirely our own. We propagate it and multiply it ourselves. Likewise, our effort will be to introduce something new in this garden every year,” he said.
