Goals: beauty

Yellow chandeliers in May, when the city most needs something to look at.

Neat glossy shrub with pinwheel white flowers; the easiest good hedge there is.

Orange jessamine — flushes of scented white flowers after every rain.

The garden chrysanthemum of the north-Indian winter, sold by the crate at Diwali.

Bulbs planted in March give heavily scented white spikes through the monsoon.

Opens at four in the afternoon and self-sows itself around the garden.

A monsoon annual of verandah pots, with seed pods children cannot leave alone.

Velvet crested heads that hold colour for weeks, in sun or half shade.

The most reliable cut flower for an Indian summer terrace.

Grown for seed rather than leaf; magenta heads over the whole monsoon.