Regions: north

A thorny hedge shrub that gives pickling fruit and keeps animals out.

Small sour-sweet berries in May, from a shrub that shrugs off a Delhi summer.

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

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

The tree the subcontinent is organised around; a grafted plant fruits in four years.

The flame tree of Indian summers; fast, spectacular and shallow-rooted.

Orchid-like flowers in February, and buds that go into the north-Indian kitchen.

Huge red cups in February that feed every bird in the neighbourhood at once.

The national flower — a big tub, full sun and patience is all it takes.

The white frangipani of temple gardens, tougher than the pink and just as scented.