Goals: beauty

The dye plant of history, nitrogen-fixing and undemanding.

A scrambling hill plant whose root gives a lasting red dye.

The mehndi hedge of the dry west — scented flowers and dye leaves.

Red February cups feeding every bird in the neighbourhood at once.

Buransh — scarlet trusses across the mid-Himalaya in March.

The Himalayan cedar — a slow, magnificent, cold-climate conifer.

Handsome, thorny and productive on poor dry soil; good in a big pot.

The abolí of southern flower markets — orange fans, picked daily.

Curtains of orange through the cool months on a big pergola.

Tall and narrow, dropping long white scented flowers through the night.