Grumpy Gardening Glossary

To help fellow gardeners understand and get to grips with the grumpy gardening lifestyle, I thought it only fair to provide a glossary of terms.

 

 

acid soil - Soil which is good for growing azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias, hibiscus and acers.

acre - A measure of land that requires you to buy a ride-on mower.

aerate – A scouse gardener finally admitting that you are correct.

air layering - Means of propagation which involves sticking a bag on the side of a tree and hoping for the best.

alkaline soil - Soil which is good for growing azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias, hibiscus and acers with the addition of Miracid.

annuals – Garish plants that are usually best confined to hanging baskets and French municipal gardens (i.e. marigolds).

arboretum – The last place in the world you want to go round showing off your hazy tree knowledge, because they have the correct names on labels underneath which will probably contradict what you’re saying. And you can only get away with the excuse, “no, that actually is a kind of beech, it’s a rare cone-bearing beech” once.

aquatic plants - Plants which will theoretically grow in water provided you plant them at the right depth.

 

bare root – Normally the condition that hedging plants are delivered in. The Royal Mail will delay delivery for weeks in spring, and then hide the package behind your gate where you don’t find it for another two.

bedding plant – the kiss-me-quick hat of the plant world (see annuals)

biennial – An annual that you suddenly realise hasn’t flowered in its first year.

Bifurcated – Let’s not go there.

bolting – The action of small-minded vegetables that calculate exactly when you are going to harvest them and run to seed the week before, or wait till you go on holiday.

bonsai – plant mutilation re-defined as an art form.

botanical name - The scientific name of a plant, often with its discoverer’s name tacked inelegantly on the end. They should never let people whose surname ends in the letter ‘i’ ever go searching for plants. Luckily Tommy Iommi from Black Sabbath was never a great plant hunter.

bud – A refreshing beer to enjoy in the garden.

bulb – Something you plant in the garden to keep the slugs healthy and well-fed all year round. Occasionally they will surprise you and emerge from the ground. That’s the slugs not the bulbs.

 

cambium – This is the noise you make with your lips, seconds after swallowing a fly, in the process of establishing that it was indeed a fly you just swallowed.

catkin – The name of a girl who is going to be mercilessly bullied at school.

chlorophyll - The green pigment found in all leaves, stems and frogs.

compost - Organic matter that is nicely rotted and decomposed in a compost bin after a couple of weeks on television programmes and a couple of millennia in my garden. The addition of a compost accelerator usually slows the process down to a geological timescale.

conifer – Beloved by Leaf Lady.

corm – The word “corn” said after a visit to the dentist when the anaesthetic hasn’t quite worn off.

crown - The part of the asparagus plant you shouldn’t leave exposed to frost and if you do, don’t be surprised if the whole row fails to come up the following year.

cuttings - A sneaky method of reproducing the best shrubs that your neighbours have, particularly ones that border the pavement (but not limited to).

 

dead heading – Pinching off old flower heads for tidiness sake. This process can be completely disregarded if you live with a woman who likes her garden just so.

dibber – The police officer in Top Cat.

de-thatch – De thing you put on top of de old cottage (sorry).

dividing - The process of splitting up perennial plants to create two plants, promote vigour, but mostly to show who’s in charge here. Some gardeners who attempt this can kill both of the resulting halves.

dormancy - The state you think that your divided perennial is in when really you have just killed a magnificent, thriving plant.

double digging – Twice the digging you expected.

double flower - A plant provided by mother nature whose single flower was clearly not good enough for know-it-all plant breeders who thought they could do much better. Normally a fuchsia.

epiphyte – Plants playing piggyback.

espalier – An expensive nursery process of training an apple tree so it grows in a flat plain. However the minute this tree is planted in the Grump garden, all its training goes out of the window and it acts as a normal tree again, with extra nobbles on to spite you.

evergreen – The colour attained by your gardening gloves and knees.

 

fertilizer – Another name for a bag of Growmore. One of the greatest conspiracies in the world of horticulture is specialist fertiliser. Broadcasters, journalists and writers are all paid big backhanders by the agrochemical companies to recommend unnecessary feeds for this and that. All plants need is a bag of Growmore and they’re lucky to get that.

flat – Technically this is a tray-like wooden box used to start cuttings, but also, with the addition of the word ‘perfectly’, it describes the state of my lawn. Before I moved in.

foliar feeding – What caterpillars do.

forcing – This is the old, politically incorrect aggressive term for making rhubarb grow abnormally long. In this new PC world the phrase has been amended to ‘facilitating the upward progress of a disinclined shoot’

frond -  leaf structure of a fern. Or, a bloke you met after seven pints in the pub.

frost – The first indication that a grumpy gardener should think about bringing inside his tender plants.

 

germinate – A rarely witnessed process where seeds begin the slow transformation into something vaguely like the picture on the packet.

girdling – The noise made by an elderly lady pensioner who has tripped and fallen into your pond.

grafting – When a grumpy gardener has been working continuously for twenty minutes without a cup of tea or any sight of a biscuit.

growing season – The part of the year which follows on from the dying season. Not to be confused with the killing season which is all year.

 

hardening off – What happens in winter when you leave the greenhouse door open by mistake.

hardiness - The ability of a plant to withstand low temperatures when you leave the greenhouse door open.

herbaceous – Not a tree.

humus – Important element of a Greek meze, along with taramsalata and tzatziki.

hydroponics – Overwatering, but done as though you meant it.

 

layering – What happens when you let a hairdresser loose with a pair of loppers and say, “Sergio, trim that tree…”

leaf lady – Someone obsessed with leaves – especially other peoples’ leaves – falling on their garden, especially the front garden. Autumn is hell.

leaf mold – In theory, something that happens in a compost bin.

loam - The word “loan” said after a visit to the dentist when the anaesthetic hasn’t quite worn off.

 

manure – Something the local stable hawks round every spring as if you couldn’t pick it up off the street for free.

microclimate – The very corners of my seed trays where in exceptional circumstances things may actually germinate.
micro nutrients – A good excuse for why your plants aren’t thriving.

mulch – A layer of bark placed in the beds to suppress weeds and also to give something for the squirrels to chuck about in the morning. Blackbirds love tossing it onto the path to see if they can surprise the worms and grubs underneath. It’s like the Nintendo Wii for blackbirds.

 

native plant – grass, dandelions and oak trees.

node – Something to watch out for when you’re pruning. Apparently.

 

organic gardening – Another term for low-cost gardening. Organic gardeners are not allowed to buy anything or pass within 200 metres of a garden centre. Goods or services they wish to obtain, they must barter for. If their crops are blighted they have to bring in a local witch.

organic material – Anything produced by an organism…or deposited by an organism, such as my neighbour: The Weasel.

 

The full, unexpurgated glossary can be read in The Grumpy Gardener's Handbook (Portico - an imprint of Pavilion Books).