The green corner of Malenn and Adi

Here are two vital Mauritian personalities. But did you know that Malenn Oodiah and Adi Teelock cultivate a common passion? Plants!
Meet them in their garden in Rose-Hill.

Eight hundreds to thousand of varieties of plants in a garden at the heart of Rose-Hill. Incredible, isn’t this? But indeed very true!
Welcome to the garden of Malenn Oodiah and Adi Teelock. Their house is built on a 450 toises land surrounded by a lush garden. Multiplying palm trees, litchis, mango trees, banana trees, jack-fruit trees, coconuts, frangipanis, bougainvillea…
this is only some among the varieties of plants in their garden.
“I always loved plants. This passion comes from my father who liked to plant and my mother who loved ferns”, tells the sociologist and communication director of New Mauritius Hotels.
His greatest pleasure: to see his plants growing “depi so lagrain” to become a beautiful tree. Like tamarind seeds that he recently put to ground and from which the young seedling are coming up.
“The garden is like a school of patience for me”, adds Malenn Oodiah who spends around an hour and a half per day. We thus find almost everywhere in his garden, cuttings in pots which are waiting to be transplanted. There is even an “ICU” corner, as calls the plant lover calls it. “I look after the sick plants there and make my cuttings.”

Corners and recesses
The garden of Malenn and Adi is full of corners and recesses where we can sit and “bwar enn bon labier”, says the owner, to meditate or enjoy the natural landscape. And around one of these corners, Malenn Oodiah feels angry about the slaughtering of bat carried out by the government: “It is a crime to kill bats as it is forgetting all the benefits which they bring to the ecosystem. The solution is not to kill them but to protect the fruits.”
Malenn is a nature passionate. A favorite plant? “I love all the plants. I love their diversity, their forms, and their colours.” His wife Adi Teelock shares the same opinion as her husband even if two plants have conquered her heart: orchids and ferns. She cultivates them on her terrace and in her house since eight years. “I have about thirty orchids among which Vandas and Phalaenopsis”, explains the historian who says that she takes care of only flowers. For the rest of the garden, it is Malenn who decides.
“Fortunately, we share the same views. Our garden is far from being manicured, but it reflects our love for the biodiversity and the mixture of cultures.” A passion for plants that unites the couple for more than 25 years.

The treasures of the gentleman
Bilimbis long almost ready for harvest and the making of pickles!
An orange tree… here is a plant which is not found in every garden of all the Misters!

The terrace, at the first floor, being a lost space.
Malenn made some transformation into a “garden on the roofs”. There are cans cut into two where he cultivates aromatic herbs, lettuces or other plants. But Malenn will not be stopping at his first terrace. “I also will cover the roof of the house with cactus.”

A jack-fruit tree filled with these fruits from India and which are waiting to be picked. Malenn is proud to show us these green pepper seeds, perfect on a steak, he adds.