Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Gardener's glossary Gardening is one of those occupations which is overgrown with jargon. If you're serious as a gardener you won't get away with using simple words like dig, plant and weed. Oh, no. Plant enthusiasts practise a whole vocabulary of strange activities, some of which you hardly like to ask about, from top dressing to pricking out, hardening off and bedding out. So that you can translate the backs of seed packets and the pages of gardening guides, here's a glossary of the most common gardening terms you'll find in this book and elsewhere.

(We have tried not to insult your intelligence by defining terms such as flower, or spade.) Acid soil- Soil with pH content below 7 (good for e.g. heather, rhododendron, gentian) Activator- In composting, an ingredient which stimulates and accelerates the composting process (unfortunately there isn't yet an ingredient which stimulates and accelerates the gardener to get on with the less appealing garden jobs) Alkaline soil- Soil with pH content above 7 (good for e.g. clematis, poppy, fuchsia) Alpine- Plant which, in the wild, grows between the treeline and the snowline so hardy and usually small Annual- A plant that lives for one year only Bedding plant- A plant used for mass planting of the same type for instant display such as in parks, roundabouts etc (not one grown to stuff mattresses with) Biennial- A plant that flowers only in its second year and dies after flowering. Some plants are not true biennials but are grown as such e.g.

wallflower, forget-menot, sweet William Brassica- Member of the large cruciferae family of vegetables including cabbages, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale Chit- Encouraging tubers such as potatoes to sprout before planting by exposing them to maximum daylight somewhere cool but frost free Compost- Has two meanings: a) a mixture of different soils and nutrients b) rotted vegetable matter or farmyard manure Cordon- Way of pruning that restricts a plant to a single main stem Corm- A swollen stem base below the ground which stores food reserves. Unlike a bulb it isn't layered, but the whole is covered in papery scales.