Regions: West India

Pink or white flowers all year on a shrub that survives the worst urban roadside.

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

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

The southern vasaka — a shade-tolerant shrub with white hooded flowers.

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

One enlarged white sepal per flower, so the whole shrub reads as pale bracts.

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