Mehboob Nursery & Farm

Our nursery is tucked away in Gali No- 7, which is part of the Multani Dhanda area in Paharganj. If you know Paharganj, you know how crowded and narrow the streets can get, so finding a green space like Mehboob Nursery & Farm is always a bit of a surprise for people. We’ve got Shop No-8079, and it’s packed with plants from the floor to the ceiling almost. It’s a bit of a struggle to move the bigger pots through the gali, but we’ve gotten used to the squeeze over the years. We spend our mornings watering everything and making sure the soil is right. It’s a lot of dirt under the fingernails and physical labor, but it’s nice to be around growing things in the middle of the city. People come to us when they want a bit of life for their balconies or rooftops. We don't have any formal training in botany, just years of growing things and seeing what works in this Delhi heat. Sometimes the dust from the street is a problem for the leaves, so we spend a lot of time cleaning them off. It’s a quiet life even though the neighborhood is loud. We share the street with all kinds of other shops, but we’re the ones with the flowers spilling out onto the pavement. It’s just a small family thing we’ve kept going because we like plants and seeing things grow in the city.