Get ready for the new gardening season with this review of gardening terms we’ll be using during the coming season.
Cool season plants: grow best during cooler temperatures between 60 to 80 degrees. In Colorado, this is the spring and fall growing window. Vegetables include leafy greens, cole crops, onion, peas, radish, potato, beet and carrot. Popular ornamental cool season plants include alyssum, pansy, nasturtium, snapdragon, sweet pea and osteospermum.
Compost: completely decomposed soil made from decayed organic matter from leaves, dead plants, vegetable scraps or aged animal manures used to condition and improve soil structure. The act of composting for the home gardener is collecting and combining raw, organic materials in piles or structures to allow naturally occurring microbes to break down over time resulting in finished compost.
Cultivar vs. variety: plants are given at least two botanical names — genus and species. Example, Echinacea (genus) purpurea (species) is commonly called purple coneflower. Often the plant has a third name, either a cultivar or variety, which is more information about the plantap characteristics or how it came to be in existence.
Variety is a naturally occurring plant that grows without breeding, it exists in nature and will have the same characteristics as the parent plant. Variety names are written in Latin, have no quotes and are preceded by the lower case, abbreviation var. for variety. Example, a white flowering redbud tree found growing anywhere in nature is called Cercis canadensis var. alba.
A cultivar is the result of plant breeding from plant cuttings, tissue culture or grafting. Cultivar names are often in English (named after the person who bred the plant), capitalized and placed in single quotes. The popular, mildew resistant Phlox paniculata “David” is an example. You’ll notice more and more cultivars on the market to reflect new and often times superior traits such as bloom color, disease resistance or other characteristics.
Deadheading vs spring cutting back: a technique of pruning using scissors or fingers to pinch and remove faded flowers on blooming plants during the growing season. This encourages the plant to flower more, plus it removes seed heads (if unwanted) and tidies up the plant. Cutting back dead foliage on perennials from last summer is one of the first early spring chores to allow for new growth.
Deciduous: plants that shed their leaves each fall.
Floating row cover: reusable plant sheets made of a spun polyester fabric (gauze-like material) that serve many beneficial applications in the garden. They conserve heat, which helps with earlier spring planting or extending the season in the fall. FRCs can keep out pest insects and aid in seed germination with the extra humidity created under the sheet. They are generally sold in three weights (light, medium, heavy) which allow varying percentages of sunlight transmission, rain penetration and freedom of plant growth underneath (if given slack or head room). Sold in retail locations in packages or cut to size on rolls.
Herbaceous: plants that grow above ground with soft stems instead of woody growth and die back to the ground with frost.
Heirloom: often used to describe fruits and vegetables about the plantap number of years in cultivation — before 1951 when hybrid plants were introduced. All heirloom plants are open-pollinated meaning their seeds will always grow “true to type” and look and grow exactly like the parent plant in color, flavor and size.
Hybrid: plants created by cross-pollination within the same species (happens naturally in nature) or on purpose by plant breeders by crossing two different parental types of a plant to achieve a plant with more desirable characteristics. Seeds saved from hybrid plants will not come true like heirloom plants.
Betty Cahill speaks and writes about gardening in Colorado. Visit her at gardenpunchlist. blogspot.com/ for more tips
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