About the Author - Dinesh Rawat
 
Dinesh Rawat
Dinesh Rawat, born in 1953, in Kolkata, is a true example of versatile personality. A Commerce as well as a Law graduate from Calcutta University, he started his career at the age of 18 at a meager salary of Rs 75 per month and rose up to a premier position in international trading. He established trading companies in India, Myanmar & Sri Lanka. Besides being a director of over 20 companies, he was a member of almost all the Chambers of Commerce and Associations in his business field. In order to live in the abode of nature, in 2001, he shifted to a beautiful village called Samukpota, 9 kilometers away from the madding crowd of Kolkata.

In 2002, he started there a spiritual retreat amidst lush green surrounding. There, he realized that a lot of exotic palms could be grown in the village. This resulted in his deep study of Palms and he took to horticulture and cultivated over 250 species of Palms in his nursery spreading around 40 acres of land. He has now one of the largest collections of Palms in India. He has travelled over 60 countries to study Palms, met many personalities/ authorities on Palms & gathered knowledge on them. In 2006, he published a pocket book on Palms which earned huge fame among plant lovers.
 
Dinesh Rawat, born in 1953, in Kolkata, is a true example of versatile personality. A Commerce as well as a Law graduate from Calcutta University, he started his career at the age of 18 at a meager salary of Rs 75 per month and rose up to a premier position in international trading. He established trading companies in India, Myanmar & Sri Lanka. Besides being a director of over 20 companies, he was a member of almost all the Chambers of Commerce and Associations in his business field. In order to live in the abode of nature, in 2001, he shifted to a beautiful village called Samukpota, 9 kilometers away from the madding crowd of Kolkata.

In 2002, he started there a spiritual retreat amidst lush green surrounding. There, he realized that a lot of exotic palms could be grown in the village. This resulted in his deep study of Palms and he took to horticulture and cultivated over 250 species of Palms in his nursery spreading around 40 acres of land. He has now one of the largest collections of Palms in India. He has travelled over 60 countries to study Palms, met many personalities/ authorities on Palms & gathered knowledge on them. In 2006, he published a pocket book on Palms which earned huge fame among plant lovers.
 
While traveling to many palm growing countries throughout the world, I came across many books on Palms written by learned and reputed authors. I studied and found that they are quite expensive and none suited for Indian conditions. Hence I decided to publish this book giving details of palms that can be best grown in Indian sub-continent.

My writing is based on my own experience and interactions with experts of palms from around the world.

Palms are excellent plants, commonly seen and much admired in our landscape. They have been very less emphasized in India as ornamental plants due to lack of awareness and higher initial cost. But now awareness towards palms is growing like “wild fire”. Town Planners, Landscapers and Gardeners have realized that though expensive initially, in the long run palms are a worthwhile investment. They enhance value of properties, have excellent symmetry and are self maintaining.
 
Palms generally, are slow to grow in the initial years; thereafter they grow quite rapidly, maintaining uniformity throughout. They are evergreen, do not require pruning; fertilizing is straight forward – available water is all that is essential. They do not take much ground space on account of their compact and fibrous root system; therefore they can be transplanted with ease compared to trees. They are quite hardy and capable of growing almost any where in any type of soil, some types even without regular irrigation and with little maintenance.

Nearly all palms covered in this hand book are capable of growing all over Indian sub-continent. Agro climatically most of our Indian subcontinent is quite suitable for palm culture.

With the support of Indian and International experts and botanists in the field of palm’s horticulture, we hope that this publication, titled “Palms for India” that provides simple ‘small-tips’, prove to bring BIG RESULTS. We shall be grateful to have any of your valuable suggestions and feedback, which would be of immense help in our forthcoming publications.