Growing spaces: ground

Fine blue-white flowers over ferny leaves, then the black seed of the spice box.

Feathery winter foliage, then umbels that hoverflies and small wasps work all day.

A winter annual of the north-west, grown for the thyme-scented seed.

Plant a knob of market haldi in June; harvest your own in February.

A curcuma that smells of raw mango — the pickle rhizome of the east.

A marginal water plant for a tub, aromatic-rooted and steady for years.

A slender twiner of scrub and hedges, with fragrant roots and small dark flowers.

A slow, tough native tree for a hot courtyard, with fruit that makes the summer sherbet.

An unfussy evergreen shrub with white throated flowers that carpenter bees work.

A low monsoon weed of wet ground, gathered for hair oil for as long as anyone remembers.