Kalimpong nurseries
Kalimpong's mild, wet slopes made it a nursery town. Two family growers on its edge have been at work since the early 1970s, and an hour with either is one of the quietest mornings in the hills.
Photo: Subhajit Das
Why here
At 1,247 m (4,090 ft) the town is milder than Darjeeling, and its slopes are wet. Growers here export Himalayan bulbs, tubers and rhizomes, and keep cymbidiums beside orchid species from forests that run east into Burma.
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Since 1972
Nurseryman's Haven, a kilometer out of town on the main highway, has shipped orchids abroad since 1972. Cymbidiums hang in its shade houses among more than a thousand species of orchids, plants and trees, on two acres fed by a spring.
Photo: Mosharraf Hossain / Unsplash
Atisha Road, since 1971
Pine View Nursery was founded in 1971 by a grower who gave up orchids for cacti. It now keeps hundreds of species under glass, plants from deserts on other continents growing on a wet Himalayan ridge. It is closed on Sundays.
Photo: Boudhayan Bardhan / Unsplash
How to visit
Late morning, when growers have time, is the hour to ask for. A nursery is a working place, so ask before anyone handles a plant. Rain hardly matters here: almost everything worth seeing is under glass.
Photo: Unsplash
Taking a plant home
Growers pack plants to travel within India. Taking plants out of India needs export paperwork, so ask before you buy. Flying home, buy only what your own country's import rules allow, and expect soil to be unwelcome.
Photo: Pranjal Panchal / Pexels
When to come
In March the town warms fast and its gardens come into flower; April keeps mild days. The Flower Festival on the Mela Ground falls in mid-February, on dates the district announces each year. Two or three nights leave room for a nursery morning.
Photo: Lobay Tamang / Pexels