Some Gardening Terms You should Know

Here are a few gardening terms. 

Annual: A plant that completes its entire life cycle (growth, reproduction, death) in one season.
Bare root: These plants (such as Roses) have been field-grown and are supplied in a dormant state with the soil removed.
Biennial: A plant that completes its entire life cycle in two years, growing in the first year and reproducing and dying in the second.
Bulb:  An underground storage organ with fleshy scale leaves from which the plant flowers and grows before becoming dormant. Such as tulips or daffodils.
Cold Frame:  Unheated frame for starting plants outdoors. It can also protect tender crops during times of frost.
Crown:  The growing point of a plant from which new shoots emerge, at or just below the soil surface.
Dead-head:  To remove the spent blooms on a plant to encourage further flowering or to prevent self-seeding.
Deciduous:  A plant that sheds its leaves each year.
Germination:  Refers to the point at which a seed undergoes physical changes and begins to grow.
Grafting:  Where one plant is artificially joined to the rootstock of another so they eventually function as one plant.
Harden off:  To help young plants that were started indoors, to adjust to cooler conditions outdoors. This is normally achieved by leaving plants outside during the day and bringing them undercover at night.
Mulch:  Layers of material placed on the soil and around plants to retain moisture, suppress weeds and improve soil structure.
Organic matter:  Used for improving poor soil. Usually consisting of decomposed leaves, grass, or manure.
Pinching:  Removing the growing points of a young plant to encourage side-shoots to form. This encourages a bushy habit and more flowering stems.
Pollination:  The transfer of pollen between flowers, which can be carried out by the wind, insects, animals or by hand.
Propagate:  To grow plants from seed or by vegetative means e.g. cuttings or grafting.
Rhizome:  A horizontal fleshy stem which grows at or below ground level. Rhizomes produce roots and shoots.
Runner:  A trailing stem growing above ground and rooting at the nodes, where plantlets are produced such as strawberries.  Some plants produce underground runners.
Thin:  To remove a number of buds, flowers, seedlings or shoots to improve the growth and quality of those remaining.
Tuber:  Swollen root or underground stem with storage tissue, much like a potato.