Regions: North India

Purple fruit in June and dense evergreen shade for the rest of the year.

The fruit of the dry west, cropping where irrigation is impossible.

Feathery-leaved and drought-hardy; one grafted tree feeds a household in winter.

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.

Fruit in March, silkworm leaves all summer, and shade in between.

Two crops a year in the west, and content in a large container.

Handsome, thorny and productive on poor dry soil; good in a big pot.

Kagzi lime — the single most useful pot tree for an Indian household.

A spiny yellow-flowered shrub of dry scrub, unbothered by heat or thin soil.