Goals: Biodiversity

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

The most reliable cut flower for an Indian summer terrace.

Companion-planting workhorse: keeps nematodes down and feeds bees all season.

Flowers nearly all year in a warm city, and sunbirds find it within a week.

Drops its scented white flowers at dawn — the harsingar of temple courtyards.

Golden champa — a tall tree whose flowers are sold by the handful at dusk.

A Himalayan pseudo-grain that flowers white and feeds every bee for miles.

A shrubby pulse that stands two years, fixes nitrogen and shelters small birds.

Upright, bell-flowered and ancient; the oilseed of the dry season.

Palmarosa — a scented grass of the central hills, distilled for its rose-like oil.