Tiptoe through the rhinos: the Cotswold Wildlife Park There is little to touch bananas for conjuring up a tropical flavour for visitors. 'I have been keen on them since I was a kid in Cornwall,' Miles said. Some [being very tender] we dig up in October - I say dig, it is more like wrestling. The hardier Musa basjoo we leave outside protected by straw. We are not short of straw here. Other plants that he leaves out (protected by mulch) include carmine-pink Salvia involucrate and royal-blue S 'Blue Enigma', and among shrubs, dwarf pomegranate, big-leafed loquat (Eriobotrya) and yellow edgeworthia. But the spring and autumn operations here are monumental, with a mass of plants moved in and out of the glasshouses, including tropical blue waterlilies. Throughout most of the grounds, the planting takes its cue from the animals nearby. 'We want to give them a nice setting, and set an appropriate mood,' Miles said. It is a sort of fantasy evocation of each habitat, packed with floral spectacle and vegetation approximating what you might find in the wild. So outside the Tropical House, home to a turquoise-feathered turaco, the mood is intensified with a scheme of bromeliads attached to gnarled branches, far more swashbuckling than you would meet in the rainforest. Next to the macaws, you are plunged into a tunnel of Amazonian-looking vines that are in fact hardy kiwi fruit. Wherever possible, the plants repeat both inside and outside the animal enclosures. 'If you can immerse the visitors in the same environment as the creature they are looking at, there is more of a connection,' Miles said, pointing out, however, that the destructive habits of many animals prohibit planting of any kind in their enclosures. In those cases, simply providing them with vegetation outside the enclosure can still help to give its animal occupant protection from the elements. 'From the animals' points of view, the gardens are very important in giving a sense of security.' In 'Madagascar', the park's walk-through enclosure for lemurs, finding lemur-proof plants has been a challenge. Zoos do share information on good plants. Bamboo, being tough, is usually a good choice for destructive animals, but that gets grazed by the lemurs too,' Miles said. The sifakas [ghost lemurs] are particularly partial to false acacia leaves, so we collect them in summer and freeze them to supply them through the winter. Some of Miles's most arresting planting is beside the meerkat enclosure. Coming from a desert habitat, the meerkats have inspired an extensive arid habitat planting scheme. Part of it is reminiscent of the Canary Islands, with the plants displayed on clinker rather than black sand, and the rest has a setting of pale rock and gravel. Hardy shrubs and perennials from the world's Mediterranean-climate regions, such as lavenders, santolina, scarlet zauschneria, blue-leafed Kniphofia caulescens and Euphorbia myrsinites are here juxtaposed with an array of palms and succulents, many of which - among them yellow-flowered Aloe striatula, prickly pear (Opuntia), the Chusan palm Trachycarpus wagnerianus, and Hesperaloe parviflora - have proved quite hardy. But in a hard winter, there are casualties. Cordylines have been badly clobbered in recent years. When they re-sprout, Miles's tip is to cut out all but two or three growths to encourage them to make a stem structure again. In the more open expanses of the park, where the hoofed animals graze, he has gone for modern, prairie-style planting. Occasionally, these are just stands of tall miscanthus grasses, but here and there are colourful and elaborate schemes, climaxing in a hot border of yellow verbascum, red 'Stafford' daylily, orange alstroemeria and crocosmia, all in a mist of bronze fennel and parchment-tinted Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' grasses. It is obvious that Miles and his staff of six full-time and three part-time gardeners are having lots of fun here; the enthusiasm is palpable and every opportunity offered by this unusual backdrop is being seized. And, Miles said, while some animals' munching does give him the occasional headache, other animals' activities can be helpful. If I have a pest problem on a pot plant, such as a loquat covered in mealy bug, I put it in the Tropical House, and the white-eyes [Asian birds] clean it. Cotswold Wildlife Park, Oxfordshire, is open daily 10am-6pm (cotswoldwildlifepark.co.uk)