Garden Vocabulary In English
English garden vocabulary
Most people like to grow vegetables and flowers. In fact, gardening is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. Here are the words and phrases you will need to talk about your garden.
In many gardens you will find a lawn. A lawn is a patch of grass mown (= cut) on a regular basis so that the grass doesn’t grow beyond a certain height.
In a typical lawn, you will find vegetables, herbs, fruit trees (e.g. mangoes and apples), ornamental trees, bushes and shrubs. Herbs are plants with medicinal value. Bushes and shrubs are small trees (or large plants) that may also grow flowers. Flowers are grown in most gardens. In fact, a garden would be incomplete without a flower border. Roses, jasmines, marigolds, lilies and sunflowers are some popular flowering plants.
Some gardens have wooden fences around them. More creative gardeners will make a natural border with a hedge. These are plants that don’t grow beyond one or two metres. They not only create a border around the garden, but also enhance its looks.
Garden tools
It is not easy to keep your garden looking good. Ask any seasoned gardener and they will tell you that maintaining a beautiful garden takes a lot of time and effort. On the bright side, several garden tools are available and they make the job a whole lot easier.
A lawnmower is a machine used to keep the grass short. Garden shears are more or less like large scissors. They are used to trim the hedge. There are also several other tools. Forks are used for digging up the earth. Spades are used for lifting up quantities for earth. Hoes (singular: hoe) are useful for scraping up weeds. Weeds are unwanted or wild plants that grow alongside other plants in a garden. If they aren’t removed they will affect the growth of other plants.
Gardening involves doing different jobs at different times of the year. In India, where I live, seeds are usually sown during the rainy season which extends from June to September. Shrubs and trees are usually pruned at the beginning of the rainy season. Pruning means the process of cutting off unwanted branches in the trees. In the UK, seeds are sown in spring. Seedlings are the small plants grown from seeds. Most plants will need to be watered during the hot summer months.
