Regions: North India

Narrow willow leaves and yellow bells; tough, fast and equally poisonous.

Orange tubular flowers, continuously, and the sunbirds that follow them.

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

A hardier deciduous hibiscus for the hills, flowering through the monsoon.

Blue flower sprays and orange berries at once; the standard clipped Indian hedge.

Invasive across Indian forests — grow the sterile garden cultivars only, never the wild kind.

The chandni — pinwheel white flowers, glossy leaves and constant flowering in shade.

A soft-haired jasmine that flowers through the cool months on a low wall.

A pot by an open window does more for a summer evening than any air freshener.

The chameli of the perfume fields — long-tubed white flowers picked before dawn.