Kachnar Tree (Bauhinia variegata): How to Grow It in Jaipur and Use Its Buds

It does well here, but it is not a desert tree like khejri or neem. Its home is the low and middle hills of the Himalaya, up to about 1,800 m, and the plains of north, east and central India. ICFRE describes it as a tree of hot, dry summers and mild winters, with 500 to 2,500 mm of rain a year, and notes that it usually avoids arid tracts that get less than 500 mm.

Jaipur averages about 600 mm (IMD normal for 1991–2020), so the city sits near the dry end of what kachnar likes. Our summers are harsher too: May afternoons average 41 °C and the city has touched 48.5 °C. So a young kachnar here needs water through its first two or three summers. Once its roots are down, both ICFRE and ICRAF call it fairly drought-hardy.

Cold is less of a worry. ICFRE lists kachnar as frost-hardy; ICRAF adds that severe frost can burn the leaves of saplings, which then grow back. Jaipur's lowest recorded night is −2.2 °C and a normal winter brings about six cold-wave days, so a light cover on the worst nights of the first winter is enough.

It grows best in well-drained sandy loam and copes with gravelly, rocky ground, so Jaipur's sandy soils suit it. Avoid low spots where rainwater stands. Kachnar is already a familiar garden and roadside tree in north Indian cities, and eFlora of India has records of it from both Jaipur and Delhi.