Asia's largest tulip garden inaugurated

SRINAGAR: Asia's largest tulip garden with more than three lakh flowers in full bloom was on Saturday thrown open to the public here.

The garden, also known as Siraj Bagh, has tulip bulbs imported from Holland and was inaugurated by Director Tourism Farooq Ahmad Shah.

"This is going to be another attraction for lakhs of tourists visiting Kashmir as a wide variety of tulips can be found here," Shah said.

Director Gardens and Parks KK Sharma said it would become the second largest tulip garden in the world once the entire area of 28 hectares is brought under flower cultivation.

Since the tulips have a short life, we are going to introduce other varieties of flowers like lilies to keep the garden colourful during the entire summer, Sharma said.

He said the department was also planning to merge the tulip garden with the adjoining Nehru Memorial Botanical Gardens.