This talk explores the extraordinary 450 million-year evolution of plants and the inventive ways they solved the many problems arising from the move on to dry land – gravity, nutrition, desiccation and the particularly intractable and surprising issue of reproduction. We then discover how humans adapted this bountiful heritage in the invention of agriculture, why, where and how this happened, and why this step has been described as “the worst mistake in history“. It should provide a fascinating new perspective on the plants that grow in your garden.