Srinagar Apr 16: Asia’s largest Tulip garden in Srinagar will shut for visitors on April 18 as the flowers have started to wilt in view of rise in temperatures, officials said Saturday.
News agency KNO quoted Director Floriculture Farooq Ahmed Rather saying that the department has decided to close the garden for visitors on April 18.
“The Tulip bloom has started to shrink in view of the rise in the temperatures. This year we had opened the garden earlier than previous year, ” Rather said.
He further informed that from March 23 to April 16, an all time high of 3.5 lakh visitors including tourists and locals visited the garden compared to 2.26 lakh visitors last year.
Rather thanked people and tourists for visiting garden in large numbers. He, however, urged tourists to explore the beauty of other gardens of Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir stating that the valley “is not all about Tulip garden only”.
This year, 1.5 million Tulips and various varieties of flowers bloomed at the garden that mesmerised the visitors. The tourism department had put on display the famous food cuisine of Kashmir—Wazwan and various varieties of Kashmir’s traditional bread besides kehwa, in a bid to woo tourists. This year, Kashmir is witnessing record number of tourist arrivals for the first time in the past over a decade. In March month of this year, 1.80 lakh tourists visited Kashmir, which is highest ever in the past ten years.