Mari Gold / Banthi puvvu

No Indian needs to be introduced to this flower. Most of them had some kind of memories with this flower in thier child hood garden or in fields or in wedding or any auspicious functions, poojas, festivals. This is a must to have flower. In south India this flowers is offered to god. They come in different colors.

I have my own memories around this flower. I remember this plant in my garden. we have several of these plants but one plant in particular had a wild bloom. I ended up with a pula jada (hair braided with flowers) during festive days, mainly during dussera we used to have big garlands of these flowers decorated to the front door. Me and my mom used to enjoy decorating with flowers during these festive days. There are so many memories around this one particular flower.

We can see this flower in almost every house in the village or country side.

I had this in my garden but rabbits ate them. My neighbor had these flowers and luckily rabbit showed mercy on these and I felt lucky at least to enjoy them from my neighbor Judie.

We had too many wild rabbits this time, it has been a challenge to save my vegetable garden and I am fortunate I saved it. I searched so much how to get rid of these wild rabbits, every one said to use chili powder, black pepper, etc..but these rabbits are so used to all these. One day while I am cleaning my pantry, I came across this dry ginger powder and suddenly this idea popped into my head. I sprinkled this dry ginger around the plants and to my surprise I did not see rabbits from that day. I don’t know if this dry ginger this worked out or what so ever but my garden is saved for the season.