Regions: North India

Flowers open white and turn crimson over three days; scents a whole verandah.

Blue butterfly pea — a light climber that fixes nitrogen and makes blue tea.

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.

Flame of the forest — bare branches and orange flowers through the dry spring.

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

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