Dubai Municipality planted about 30 million flower seedlings in 1.32 square metres of area during the first nine months of 2013, up 2.5 per cent over total planted area in 2012.

Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al Awadi said sustainable and seasonal seedlings of flowers were planted in three loops throughout the year from the seedlings produced by DM nurseries or planting the beautification seeds directly from the basins/ponds allocated for flower cultivation.

The 30 million flower seedlings are planted on road sides, footpaths, public parks, parks attached to DM buildings, markets, abattoir and sites supervised by the Public Parks Department.

26.6 million seedlings are planted in areas between road dividers, junctions and the remaining were distributed in other places including schools, government buildings,  mosques, public associations in addition to 750,000 seedlings for patching works.

Al Awadi said that the section has completed its winter plantation work which started from the first week of September where it planted 14 million seedlings mostly marigold flowers in different colours. The planted seedlings flowered within 3-4 weeks and will continue blooming until mid-December.

‘The cultivation period of flowers is divided into three stages namely early winter period which comes from September to December, premium winter period from January to May and summer from May to September where each period includes at least cultivation of 14 million flower seedlings with a possibility to increase with the growing green areas in the emirate of Dubai,’ he said. 

“Each type of flowers needs a specific degree of temperature and the blooming will end by the end of its season. The flowers cultivated by DM has capability to grow and produce flowers of different colours. The nature of flowers and its lifetime on plants vary in accordance with type of plants which are divided into annual and sustainable. The annual flowers are a group of flowers that grow and bloom in one season and re-cultivated on yearly basis. The sustainable flowers are a group of plants which can be cultivated in any time of the year and it give flowers for long period from 1-2 years,’ he explained. 

“Although the flowers are planted for beautification, different flowers are also used for many other constructive purposes such as medication, production of perfumes and cosmetics, to use as strong insecticide against flies and mosquitoes, oil for protecting animals from pests and material for colouring fabrics,’ Al Awadi said.      

“All flower plants cultivated in the emirate of Dubai are exclusively produced by the DM nurseries,’ he added.