gurgaon you can now grow fruits and flowers in your balcony without soil at the twoday soilless gardening expo conference held at epicenter on saturday and sunday gurgaon welcomed spring with a close encounter with soilless gardening a novel concept in these parts as most flowering plants grow well during spring 35yearold telecom engineering aditya chaudhary thought of conducting the conference this month the dlf phase ii resident was surprised when he had gone to australia for a telecom project and seen a burgeoning culture of hydroponics where plants are grown without soil in water although i have no background in agriculture what i found interesting about hydroponics was that it needs less maintenance and requires only 10 of the water needed for conventional cultivation undoubtedly the technology can help many farmers and individuals in india who like gardening but have little time and space he told toi in soilless gardening sawdust gravel groundnut shells and rice husk are used as medium replacing soil seeds can be sown in the material instead of fertilizers supplements are added to the material to reach nutrition to the plant roots cultivation is usually done on huge horizontal or vertical trays this method is suitable for growing vegetables fruits flowers and herbs i have always wanted to cultivate gardening as a hobby but i find it difficult to handle soil and i dont have enough knowledge about the kind of soil used for certain types of plants said suchita agarwal 25 resident of dlf phase iv the expo provided many innovative options such as soilless pits and automatic water sprinklers that can be operated through a smartphone supplements that make fruits sweeter and bigger were also on display