GARDENING WORDS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Gardeners have a vocabulary all their own. Would anyone else besides a gardener understand what "dress with dried blood to accelerate" means? It's not a line from a teenage horror flick - just a suggestion of how to make a peony grow faster, taken from an old gardening book.

As an aid to better gardening communication, here is a list of gardening words you might hear - plus a sentence in which you can use it. (Thanks to Pike Nursery for allowing the use of this list.)

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perennial

a plant that grows for several seasons in your area

"My lantanas were perennial when we lived in Savannah but they're only annuals up here in Suwanee."

pH

a numerical measurement of your soil's acidity or alkalinity

"I want my hydrangeas to be pink so I'll put lots of lime around them to raise the soil pH to 6.5."

pH

a measurement of the acidity of your soil.

"It's been remarkable how much lime it has taken to raise my garden's pH from 5.0 to 6.0!"

Pinch

To remove the growing tip of a limb, in order to make it branch

"I pinched my redtip photinia in early summer. Now it has lots more leaves."

Poa annua

annual bluegrass; a bright green weedy grass that makes prolific white seedheads in May

"I used to try to pull out 'Po Anner' by hand in the spring. Then I got smart and started using a pre-emergent weed chemical on my lawn in the fall."

pollen

the fine, yellowish powder produced by the male part of a flower; when united with the female part of the plant, seeds are produced

"Pine tree pollen covered my car so thick I could write my name in it!"

post-emergent

a chemical that kills plants after they have emerged from the soil

"I was on vacation in March so I'll use a post-emergent on the crabgrass that's already sprouted."

pre-emergent

a chemical that prevents seeds from sprouting or growing

"It is best to apply a pre-emergent by mid-March to prevent crabgrass seeds from sprouting."

prepare

to thoroughly till or spade the soil to a depth of eight inches

"Preparing this bed is harder than I thought; maybe I should rent a tiller."

prune

to remove a limb or branch

"Let me show you how to prune that rose back to a limb that's growing in the right direction."

No glossary terms found.