This week’s post relates to the language used to describe an activity that gives a great deal of pleasure to people the world over – growing and taking care of plants and flowers, whether outside or in the home.
Starting, appropriately enough, with seeds, when you put a seed in soil so that a new plant will grow, you sow or plant it, and when you put a plant in the ground or in a container of soil, you plant it:
There’s still time to sow carrots and beetroot.
Plant the seeds two centimetres apart.
We’ve planted an apple tree in the garden.
To pour water onto a plant or the ground is to water it, and if you pour too much water onto a plant or seed and cause problems for it, you overwaterit:
Water your roses early in the morning or late in the evening.
I’m afraid I’ve killed several houseplants by overwatering them.
A weed is a wild plant that grows where it is not wanted, especially among flowers or grass in a garden. When we remove these plants from an area of the ground, we weed it or do the weeding:
The garden was neglected, and weeds were growing everywhere.
I’ve been weeding the area to the right of the path.
I really need to do some weeding before the rains start.
Moving on to cutting and removing parts of a plant, if you deadhead a plant, you remove old flowers from it. When you cut back a tree or plant, you make it smaller by cutting off parts of it, and when you prune a tree or plant, you do this especially in order to make it grow better in the future:
To encourage more flowering, deadhead the flowers as they fade.
That hedge is too tall and needs cutting back.
I watched a video on pruning roses.
If a plant grows and is healthy, you can say it does well or thrives:
The lavender is doing really well in the sunny border.
These plants thrive in the shade.
Finally, if plants usually grow well in your care, in UK English we say that you have green fingers or you are green-fingered. In US English we say you have a green thumb or are green-thumbed:
My grandmother had green fingers – her garden was so beautiful.
This is the perfect book for a green-thumbed friend.
Who do you know who has green fingers or thumbs? Let me know below!
https://lernix.com.my/lpi-linux-administration-certification-training-courses-malaysia