Our obsession with neatness is harming plants, bees and butterflies

The songs that are hot on our playlist this week

British-owned island takes drastic action to stop animals destroying native habitat

This time next year the grey concrete space next to the Westfield Stratford shopping centre will be filled with wild flowers, bees, kingfishers and fountains. Work is already under way on what will be the largest new urban park built in the country for a century.

1. Cosmic coasters

From co-workers to potential romances, civvies have no respect for the TA these days

The middle-class fashion for new hives is well-intentioned, but there's not enough nectar and pollen for them all

The Royal Horticultural Society staged the annual Britain in Bloom awards at St Peter Port, in Guernsey, at the weekend.

As a result of intensive farming and development the reign of Elizabeth II has witnessed, in wildlife terms, a vast impoverishment of the fields of Britain.

But who comes here? Is this an oil company I see before me? Marry, it is. No less than global multinational BP, sponsoring Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. And who comes hither, yon rabble of disaffected youth? Are they now mounting upon the very Stratford stage, where actors strut and fret, amidst a great caterwauling?

'I'm an obsessive alchemist when it comes to packing. I always travel light'

Some of the most well-loved flowers of the British countryside are disappearing from arable fields, conservationists warned today.

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