If you have driven along the Golf Course Road in the past week, you must have come across a novel sight – two pillars of Sector 54 Chowk Rapid Metro Station covered with hundreds of plants. These are the first vertical gardens of Gurgaon, installed by the Rapid Metro Gurgaon, in an effort to increase the city’s green cover and find new ways to combat air pollution.

Converted into a vertical garden

Talking about the idea behind the vertical gardens, Rajiv Banga, CEO & MD, Rapid Metro Gurgaon, says, “The idea of creating a vertical garden at our pillars is to extend the green cover in the city. The greenery will not only improve the aesthetics, but will also make the driving experience pleasant, along with curbing pollution. The vertical gardens have special plants that help reduce the pollution and produce oxygen 24x7. We would also urge the residents and corporates to participate in this campaign to help make our city green and beautiful.”

The gardens have been installed and are being maintained by a Delhi-based company. Piyush Saini, who works with the company, tells us, “When the Rapid Metro approached us with a request to find solution for the pollution problem. We suggested these vertical gardens. This way, we utilise the existing space on Metro pillars and also add to the green quotient of the city.”

So far, four vertical gardens have been installed on the pillars at Sector 54 Chowk Station, which together have over 6000 plants. “We have selected plants that fight smog and pollution, and enhance the beauty of the Metro pillars as well. There are plants like Spider plant, Boston fern and Asparagus,” says Piyush. The irrigation system for the plants is completely automated, with no requirement of human intervention, and the batteries of the system need to be replaced only once a month. Piyush elaborates, “We wanted to keep the gardens free from regular maintenance as they are located on a busy road. We come here once a week at the most to just clean the dust and spray some water on the leaves. Apart from that, the garden is self-sustaining.”

There have been a few times when people have stolen plants from the gardens, but the maintenance crew says such incidents are becoming less frequent now. “Earlier, we used to come here and find 20-25 plants missing every day but now, that has reduced.”