A long time ago I had a job as a gardener looking after the grounds of a block of flats. To be honest I didn’t know anything about horticulture when I first started. If one of the residents asked me what a particular plant was called, I made up a suitable name from the limited Latin I’d picked up from my mate Vince at school, replying that it was a porcus vulgaris or senex sordidum or something like that.

Nevertheless I realised I’d have to show I knew what I was doing and by trial and error my skills developed quickly. Pretty much the first thing I learned was to tell the difference between weeds and flowers. Here’s some simple advice:

If you want to find out if the plant you are looking at is one or the other, give it a pull. If it comes up easily, it’s a flower.

The second thing I taught myself was how to put them back.