By the second week of May, a west-facing balcony behaves like an oven with a view. Pots dry out before lunch, leaves scorch at the edges, and the tender greens that were thriving in February give up in a fortnight. The answer is not more watering — it is different plants.
1. Lemon grass
It wants full sun, clumps up fast, and asks for water once a week. Three leaves make the best evening tea you will drink all summer, and a pot beside a doorway keeps mosquitoes at a polite distance.
2. Bougainvillea
The classic mistake with bougainvillea is kindness. It flowers hardest when slightly starved and slightly thirsty, which makes it the ideal plant for the hottest corner you own and the one you most often forget.
3. Aloe vera
A succulent that stores its own water and resents yours. Every ten days is plenty, and a snapped leaf is genuinely useful after an afternoon in the sun.
4. Amaranth
Sow it in March and you will be cutting leaves through the worst of the heat, when spinach and coriander have long since bolted. It regrows after cutting and self-seeds if you let one plant flower.
5. Chilli
Heat is what a chilli plant is for. One plant in a ten-inch pot in full sun will supply a kitchen from June onwards; water at the base, never on the leaves, and feed it once a fortnight.
Three habits that matter more than the plant list
Water at dawn, not dusk. Mulch every pot with two inches of dry leaves or coco husk. And group your pots together — they shade each other and hold humidity between them, which is worth several degrees on a concrete floor.