Plant experts in NATO? Its buildings in need of emptying out (9)
I believe the answer is:
botanists
'plant experts' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'nato? its buildings in need of emptying out' is the wordplay.
'buildings' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen 'building' mean this).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'need of emptying out' becomes 'bs' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'nato'+'its'='natoits'
'natoits' anagrammed gives 'otanist'.
'otanist' inserted into 'bs' is 'BOTANISTS'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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