A&E for trees: pioneering clinic in India provides lifeline for poorly plants

An on-call team at Amritsar's tree hospital nurses sick neems and gives new life to troubled banyans

Sahib Singh clambers up a portable ladder, reaches out and, with the help of a few tools, tugs at the banyan tree and successfully removes it. The uprooted plant, which had sprouted from a wall inside the living room, is placed in a plastic bag filled with fertilised black soil. We will replant this on the hospital lawn," Singh says over Skype, while climbing back down the ladder. The operation lasts barely 20 minutes.

The removal of the banyan tree, considered sacred in Hinduism, is the first of three calls attended by Singh in his tree ambulance on one day in May. He is a gardener and part of the team at the Pushpa Tree and Plant Hospital and Dispensary, in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, launched in January 2020.