• HOME & GARDEN
    Home services start-up Gapoon raises angel funds

    Bengaluru-based Gapoon, founded in 2015, earlier raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding in July. Bengaluru: Home services start-up Gapoon Online Consumer Services Pvt. Ltd on Tuesday said it has raisedRs.1.2 crore in angel funding. Bengaluru-based Gapoon, founded in 2015, earlier raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding in July. It operates an on-demand as […]

  • HOME & GARDEN
    CommonFloor lays off employees not accommodated in Quikr

    CommonFloor is vacating its office space and will be moving to Quikr premises. Bengaluru: CommonFloor, the online real estate portal has laid off at least 100 of its employees who were unable to find suitable roles at Quikr India Pvt Ltd. The Bengaluru-based real estate listings portal which was acquired by Quikr in January 2016 […]

  • HOME & GARDEN
    Urban Ladder to launch home interior solutions in April

    The home interior solutions service will be launched in Bengaluru and then rolled out in Mumbai in couple of months, before being extended to other cities where the firm operates. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint Bengaluru: Online furniture store Urban Ladder will roll out home interior solutions in April, a category that the company estimates will contribute […]

  • HOME & GARDEN
    Home services startups switch to subscription based business model

    Home services company Gapoon would like to have 25% of his customers on its subscription model, which will offer monthly, quarterly, half yearly and annual packages. Bengaluru: Gapoon Online Consumer Services Pvt. Ltd, a home services company, will launch a subscription model for services such as home cleaning, electricians, appliance maintenance, plumbing, pest control and […]

  • HOME & GARDEN
    Housing.com appoints co-founder Snehil Buxy as chief product officer

    The company that has raised over $100 million in capital from investors like SoftBank, nexus venture partners, changed its business model in November from being a listing portal to focus on only buying and selling of properties. Mumbai: Mumbai-based Locon Solutions Pvt. Ltd that operates the real estate portal Housing.com said on Wednesday that it […]

  • Hepaticas: early spring jewels

    Petal power: Hepatica flowers come in all shapes and sizes. Photograph: Michael Myers Robbie Blackhall-Miles Alongside the first of the green-flowered hellebores and the early flowers of thefetid adders tongue, hidden among the white canvas of snowdrops in the woodland garden, there grows a plant that takes some closer inspection. Hepatica transsilvanica(dark form). Photograph: Michael […]

  • Alys Fowler: variegation isn’t always a bad thing

      ‘What about that nice variegated Solomon’s seal?” I point to a lovely patch outside a Greenwich brownstone as we wander about Manhattan. “Surely that’s an acceptable variegation.” “Nope,” my friend says emphatically. “I do not like variegation.” (“I do not likegreen eggs and ham,” I whisper to myself out of earshot.) I point at […]

  • Gardens: plants that live on air

    Something in the air: Tillandsia plants have specialised hair-like structures on their leaves that act like sponges. Photograph: Alamy James Wong Over the past 20 years, a growing body of scientific evidence has suggested that simply being around plants can have an important impact on mental and physical health. Even while sitting at your desk, […]

  • Gardens: all hail the vulcan palm

    Branching out: the stately vulcan palm. Photograph: Joel Sartore/Getty Images/National Geographic Creative James Wong For houseplant obsessives like me, offerings in garden centres can be a bit samey. In the face of two decades of declining sales, retailers are sticking to an ever-shrinking palette of safe options. But every so often you come across a […]

  • Gardens: chamomile lawn

    Gardening can be expensive. Even if you side-step the ready-grown plants at the garden centre and start from scratch, some seeds can cost as much as £1 each (think F1 hybrid tomatoes). Others, such as the tiny dust-like seeds of begonias, can literally sell for more than their weight in gold. For plant geeks on […]

  • Gardens: grow a mini grove

    As an urban gardener with a tiny plot to play with, poring over the fruit tree sections of the gardening catalogues can verge on heartbreaking. But if you long to fit more in than the textbooks recommend, a novel technique adopted from commercial agriculture called high-density planting might be your salvation. The idea is simple: […]

  • Gardens: drug therapy for plants

    With spring just around the corner, now is a great time to get an early start on taking hardwood cuttings, like figs and roses, as well as sowing seeds of long-season crops, such as chillies and aubergines. If you are keen to up your chances in the dark days of February, there is an easy […]