Annual
Any plant which lives and dies young, within a year in fact. Most hanging basket plants are annuals. Very high maintenance and often gaudy so I would rarely use them. Notable exceptions are sweet peas and Nigella (Love-in-a-mist).
Arbour
Somewhere shady to sit. Not often required in Aberdeen but can look pretty anyway – makes a seat look more inviting.
Barbecue
The accessory to the perfect summer. Given that we rarely have one, these are best put away for the other 360 days of the year.
Biennial
Any plant which lives and dies in two years like our native foxglove which also self-seeds very readily. They are mainly leaves in their first year then flower in the second. Since they haven’t read the book they sometimes flower twice so you don’t just get flowers every other year.
Brazier
A bit like a barbeque or the modern version of a fire pit only more decorative and without the cooking facilities. They can let us sit out when the sun goes down without requiring winter clothes but don’t help your carbon footprint.
Cassies
Aberdonian term for granite setts, preferably old and well worn by thousands of horses and carts. Huge range of sizes and lovely colours although yellow lines and tarmac are not an asset.
Chuckies
Aberdonian term for gravel. Also known as chippings or crushed quarry products.
Cool (colours)
To scientists cool colours are at the violet end of the spectrum but artists and designers think more in terms of blue and its neighbours. Visually they seem to recede from you and give a feeling of calm. Magenta is the exception to this rule but still a cool colour. Discuss.
Cube
Half a sett, generally 100mm ish each way.
Cultivar
Short for CULTIvated VARiety of plant. Species plants are generally subtle but quite robust and healthy. With selective breeding, the flowers often get bigger and brighter and are often an improvement on nature, but sometimes this is taken to extremes. Sometimes scent or health are sacrificed and double flowers don’t benefit wildlife the way single flowers do. The rest is a matter of taste.
Deciduous
Describes a plant which loses its leaves in winter. The opposite of evergreen.
Decking
The wooden surface you either love or hate, fantastic in the right place, awful when it’s wrong. Wood is great under bare feet when it’s warm and dry, and fairly child- and crockery-friendly. It can be combined with a pergola and storage-cum-seating for the built-in garden. It’s fairly green too. It really works well on a slope where the garden drops away. The down side is it will turn mossy and slippery if placed in the shade, especially in Scotland.
Gazebo (gaz-zee-boh)
A small summerhouse or pavilion probably originally to keep the hots sun off the ladies’ fair skins and prevent them ‘glowing’. See also arbour, summerhouse and sitooterie.
Geotextile
A permeable, fabric made from artificial fibre (most look like J-cloth) laid under gravel and bark to suppress weeds and sometimes under block paving to stablise the whole area. You can also lay it on the soil, cut slits in it and plant through typically covering with chuckies or bark. Sadly, this rules out most ground cover plants which suppress weeds and look nice. As a weed suppressant it isn’t the panacea that is generally hoped as many weeds are quite happy to grow in whatever you put on top or will wriggle underneath like ground elder. It will however, stop tap roots eg. dandelions digging themselves in.
Hard finishes
Stonework, paving, gravel etc – anything you’d skin your knee on if you fell over. It usually constitutes the most expensive part of a new garden. It’s also the trickiest part for your green conscience.
Herbaceous
Any soft and green plant – as opposed to woody. In cool climates they will generally die down over winter (a few are evergreen) or maybe just show themselves for a month or two like bulbs. Herbaceous plants are viewed as mid to high maintenance as most will need lifting and dividing every few years and some may need staking to stop them falling over.
Hot (colours)
To scientists hot colours are at the red end of the spectrum but again, artists and designers see it in terms of yellow and its neighbour – orange. Visually they seem to advance towards you and give a feeling of energy.
Lawn
The green sward that is your pride and joy or the bane of your life. It’s unbeatable as a child-friendly surface and what makes gardens British. It’s also one of the cheapest ways to cover bare soil.
Loggia
A structure a bit like a pergola except joined to the house so with only one side but sometimes also a roof. Good for small spaces.
Mowing strip
A narrow strip of paving used to edge a lawn, laid with its top just at the level of the newly cut grass. It means you can run the mower right over the edge so you don’t need to strim or shear the edges and if you want lawn up to a wall it’s a must. It’s a great idea for a low-maintenance garden but not cheap to install.
Mulch
Any organic material applied to the surface of the soil to feed it, cut down water loss, suppress weeds or just make it look a bit less bare. Compost is great on all counts, bark chippings are good but don’t feed, wood chippings aren’t great because they rob the soil of nutrients as they decay (bad carbon:nitrogen ratio), mushroom compost can be alkaline and is usually very unorganic.
Organic
If you’re a chemist, it’s simple – it’s any compound with carbon it – every living thing plus oil, fossil fuels etc. If you’re a gardener it can mean that too but, because fertilisers are still made inorganically (mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium), its meaning came to be extended to something of purely natural origin like compost.
Patio
Originally a Spanish term for an enclosed, tiled courtyard with maybe a few pots, it’s now used to mean any paved area.
Perennial
Any plant which lasts several years but is only active for part of the year. Usually called herbaceous perennials, they are the mainstay of the cottage garden look and have come back into fashion for modern gardens – pretty either way. Some people just know them as flowers.
Pergola (Purr-g’-la)
A vertical structure usually made of wood, which can be left bare but usually provides support for climbing plants which then provide shade for us. We might not need the shade in Aberdeen but a garden without climbers isn’t complete. The height also gives that extra dimension, literally.
Rill
A long narrow channel of moving water, usually set into the ground. It gvies you the sight and sound of water but only requires a small depth of water so can be a good child-safe feature. Also excellent for playing Pooh Sticks – but only with small sticks.
Sett
A small, rectangular, stone paving unit usually used as a surface for a path or drive but can be used as an edging – if deep enough.
Sitooterie
Scots word for somewhere you can ‘sit oot’. In these latitudes it’s more about keeping warm and dry than cool so the clever ones make use of a roof to stop all that nice warm air rising (try an umbrella at night if you’re not convinced) and a nice stone or brick wall, preferably dark, to absorb heat.
Soft finishes
The lawn, planting and mulch. Strictly speaking, thorny roses and berberis fall into this category but I can think of a few gardeners who would disagree.
Summerhouse
See gazebo etc.
Trellis
An open structure, usually wooden these day, which provides partial screening without cutting out all the light. It allows yet more planting space. If you don’t like the ready made stuff, you can have your own made up. It’s good for extending low walls up without offending the neighbours.
Water feature
Another love-it-or-hate-it element of a garden. To be really effective it needs to be as big as possible and must be sited to catch the light. Done well, nothing can match the sound and sight of water. Then if it’s planted you have all the added benefits for wildlife as well as a whole extra set of wonderful plants. It will require some looking after, more so if you want fish.
