People said to me, ‘Jonny, why do you hate phormiums and cordylines?’

And I said, ‘well, everybody needs something to hate’.    But the real answer is that they’re horrible. and they’re everywhere, and that I used to have to crawl under them – phormiums, that is, they’re the worst – in the dust to rake out beer cans and cigarette butts, and prune away some of the leathery old leaves which are usually too big to fit into the jaws of your secateurs.

see what I mean? England, Scotland, Wales,Las Vegas…..

note. Las Vegas amusements is in Barmouth, North Wales. But the prize for absurdity goes to the little prickly bugger set to guard a holiday house overlooking Loch Torridon, in north west Scotland.

If you must have something bold and ‘architectural’, let it be a yucca, it will have moments of glory:

But you see how they’ve cut in half the leaves overhanging the pavement? – although they’ve actually left the ones at head height –  better to cut them off altogether rather than amputate them. This next one is shocking: