The department’s team has planted an additional 500 species of trees and shrubs in the past two years. With winter making its presence felt, the entire campus is now flourishing with pretty seasonal flowers that have been put on display outside almost all departments of the university.

But the horticulture team is hardly satisfied with what has been achieved: it is now dedicating labour towards building footpaths along the roads and building a picnic spot near the lake in the middle of the 1,000-acre campus. Perhaps not surprising, the horticulture department won the best garden award at a horticulture show for its garden outside the Aravalli Guest House.

Proud of his team’s achievements, Horticulture Officer Sunil Kumar recalled the situation two years ago, when he had just joined the university: “There were rubbles everywhere. There was no greenery apart from the bushes, which grow in abundance in the university campus. It took a dedicated team to work our way through it.”

The main problem the team encountered was the lack of water and the rocky topography of the area, he said. To tackle the issue, the team started filling spaces between the rocks with soil so that flower could bloom in its midst. The team also took care in selecting flowers that require minimum amount of water: therefore the presence of Bougainvillea that edge the campus roads, Kumar said.

The CPWD took care of gardening during the university’s initial years but stopped work in 1993. As a result, the JNU campus started turning wilder. But now, the horticulture teams with its 90 members has its own nursery and Kumar said with pride that not a single flower is bought from outside.