Although the Mughal garden under the influence of Hindu customs became essentially a moonlight one, yet there was one month in the year, Sawan (the middle rains), when the palace ladies went down to see how their gardens fared by day. There are few prettier places than an Indian 'rains' garden, when the wonderful flowering trees and creepers are in perfection. The herbaceous flowers are limited, but those that do grow, grow so riotously that they quite make up for their lack of variety. One would hardly recognise a zinnia in an English border, after the great beds of coral, red and orange blooms with their large flower heads and branching stalks; each colour massed separately, in gorgeous parterres filled with zinnias alone. Tall cannas and balsams make another blaze of colour, marigolds and cosmos flourish, amaranth, orchids, and the orchid-like achimenes are out, the ponds are filled with lotus, and the wet garden glows and glistens where the light shines through the dark, damp masses of translucent coloured leaves, bushes of coleus, and tufts of caladiums, little pots of which look so dull in English greenhouses that one would never guess their splendour in the rains.
