Goals: Flowers & beauty

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.

A fortnight of spectacle and then a head of seed the birds will take.

Edible flowers and leaves, and a magnet that pulls aphids off your vegetables.

Opens in full sun on a terrace where nothing else will survive noon.

Flowers every day of the year and asks for nothing. Indigenous to the deccan.