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but are happy to graze quite close to cowpats. Cattle, unsurprisingly, are keen to avoid cowpats but are less discerning and will eat any grass.However, for many wild flower meadows cattle are not required - too much fertility. For example the meadow at Coton

and kept below their normal height. They're not much good if you're looking for flowers, but for sheer well-cut elegance you can't really go wrong. You know the sort of thing: yew hedges with razor edges, parasols of pleached lime and frost-dusted box

, which has gloriously felted leaves and pale yellow flowers with jam-coloured centres. This species doesn't seem to suffer as much as some others, but I always keep an eye out and pick the caterpillars off whenever I see them. I found one on the kitchen

, it's the apples and pears that have been the subject of my attentions. As we know, apple trees blossom picturesquely in spring. These flowers then develop into small fruits and then, in June, the tree shrugs and loses a fair few of these (this

: it is about 3m high and has gloriously scented tubular white flowers in Autumn, lush Autumn colour and bright red berries. Or Gentiana farreri, a trailing evergreen delight with flowers like sky blue fanfares? These are just two of the plants that Reginald

major disaster has come to light. Due to a mix up in the bulb warehouse, a batch of tulips that should have been pure white Tulipa 'Purissima' turned out to be unidentified huge-flowered red things, which do not agree at all with the neighbouring pink

woad body paint terrorising Romans. The plant from which this comes is Isatis tinctoria and, oddly, it is not even faintly blue, but very yellow.I was reminded of this by a quick preview visit to Jekka McVicar's stand at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

confection that really should have been immediately composted as soon as the first flower showed. The raspberry rippled pink and white collar would be almost acceptable as camouflage for plankton but when teamed with the urine yellow centre it ventures

but you may feel a small part of the January blues fall away.If anybody should get them all right then I will award them a loud and prolonged round of virtual applause - and a huge bunch of heavily scented imaginary flowers. Answers in a couple of weeks.

My snowdrops are at the point where it is possible to start spotting them among the long grass. Not much longer to wait and they will be in full flower: tiny, green-spotted delights to lift the sombre mood of both recession and late-January. When we