Plumeria, marigold and chandni flowers have been used to make this floral rangoli in an uruli full of water.

This beautiful rangoli made from dry coloured rangoli powders and flowers is from a Rangoli competition in a Chennai street.

This rangoli is made using jasmine, oleander, roses, marigolds, rice, grass and earthen lamps with wick and oil.

This flower is blooming in my garden, though I don’t know the name. I’ve seen it in shades of yellow, rust, orange, maroon, white and pink.

I call it the paper flower because of the crisp, papery texture of its petals. These make lovely dry flower arrangements. There is no need to dry the flowers. They last forever in an arrangement, minus the water.

Zinnias make sturdy plants in a North Indian garden. Despite the hot summer, these flowers do well in beds. And rich colours, chrome, ochre, mauve, pink, violet, carmine, vermillion, you name it…

They grow everywhere: highway dividers, landscaped gardens, household pots, as a climber against the boundary wall…

And alongside railway tracks :) The train ride between Agra and Mathura is a colourful splash because of these. Well, yes, the green fields and shady groves on the way also provide interesting colour, but bougainvilleas absolutely find me rushing to the window to catch that racing patch of fuchsia pink or chrome yellow as the case may be. More...