Seasons: Winter

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

A sub-Himalayan scrambler with brick-red bracts through the cool months.

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

Flat clusters of small stars that butterflies can actually land on.

The garden chrysanthemum of the north-Indian winter, sold by the crate at Diwali.

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.

Flowers every day of the year and asks for nothing. Indigenous to the deccan.

The Spanish jasmine of the perfume trade, grown widely in the north and west.

Regrows from the root end of a shop-bought bunch — the cheapest crop there is.