Plants grow where they can and these days their habitats may be limited. Farmers can’t afford to grow plants that are not needed for their crop.

Also, some plants, like ragwort, must be destroyed – they are poisonous to stock.

My father always said that these plants were particularly poisonous to horses.

They are easy to spot on Oak Meadow because the golden flowers shine brightly in the sun.

We dig them all out. Our hay goes to a farmer who would not thank us for ragwort.

And yet year after year it clings on, maybe not in the field but somewhere on the edge.

Plants do not always need the best cultivated land.

Looking down our road I can see dandelions, cat’s ear, nettles, white yarrow and of course ragwort. The roadsides have been cut and the hedges trimmed, so where can they go? Sometimes literally in the gutter. I can see them in the cracks round the manhole cover.

They are growing undisturbed on the little ‘Keep Left’ island at the end of the road.

Plantain leaves hug the foot path curb, frequently trodden on, they are flat and round.

There is no soil there, so they grow leaves in a tight circle to avoid losing water.

‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ said Aristotle. Plants will find every little niche and adapt to growing there, on the roadside, clinging to the margins.

I first learnt about ecosystems when I was a student, studying science. We all went to a field study centre.

But it was not any old centre – it was Flatford Mill in Suffolk – the one painted by Constable.

I lived for a week in an oil painting!

My room was the one that you can still see, sticking out precariously as it does, held by two props of wood at the top of the mill.

The male students had to be separated from the women in those days, and the men stayed in Willy Lott’s Cottage which you can see in Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’.

As I remember, the male and female students were only allowed to mix at meal times in the refectory. We had a tutor who told us about the plants growing on the roadside. You could easily see the lines of plants (it was obvious when he showed us) adapted to growing in their own special place. The briars and shrubs were at the back scrambling along the fence. Then there were the tall grasses with loosestrife and foxgloves.

The shorter grasses were growing with wild mallow.

The flat-leaf daisies and plantain were thriving near the kerb.

Nowadays we cut the verges and it is not always easy to see the lines of the plants, but our road side still has definite strips of growth.

At the back there is scrub, then come the grasses and lastly the roadside plants on the verge. And this is where I have found ragwort.

Admittedly, it is no oil painting and its name does not flatter it. Rag-a-muffin, no good and worthless, it would seem – yet the insects in the summer love to feed off its nectar.

And here in the middle of November it is still shining out.

Also, we need not worry about males and females being together.

The flowers of ragwort are hermaphrodite and are self-fertile.