Collected Stock

Plants which have been taken from their native habitat and shipped direct from the collecting ground to the new location. These require more care and are subject to greater loss than nursery-grown stock.

Cold Frame

An unheated, outdoor, covered plant house, generally covered with glazed sash; but sometimes prepared paper or cloth is used. No manure is used in the soil at bottom of a cold frame. Cold frames are most frequently used as a transition space in the hardening-off process.

Compost

A soil made by mixing loam with decaying organic compounds and sometimes inorganic fertilizers, allowing nitrification and oxidation to proceed; but preventing plant growth until a very rich soil is produced.

Congested

A term applied in planting to a situation having impure air or restricted feeding area for roots, or both.

Conifer

A plant which bears its seeds in a cone. With the exception of the ginkgo, the larches, and the bald cypress practically all conifers are evergreen needle-bearing plants, as the pine, spruce, and fir. (See Evergreen.)

Cover Crop

A herbaceous crop sown to cover the ground temporarily and thus protect it from atmospheric and water action; generally plowed under for its fertilizing value.

Creeping Plants

Those plants whose stems run along either on or under the ground and root at intervals.

Crevice Plants

Those plants with tenacious root systems adapted for use in the narrow and congested soil areas between flagstones in a walk or between stones in a dry wall.

Cross Fertilization

The conveyance of pollen from one flower to another.

Crown, of bulbs or other herbaceous plants

The persistent portion of the stem which bears the buds which form the next stem.

Cuttings

Detached leaf buds or portions of branches which are capable under favourable circumstances of forming new plants when placed in a moist, warm soil.

Deciduous

Plants that drop their leaves each fall and produce a complete new set of leaves each spring.

Dehorn

To remove a portion of the top of a plant, leaving only short portions of the main branches.

Design Bedding

A design of herbaceous plants used for the purpose of producing a definite effect from their flowers and not their foliage, and allowed to continue their normal growth without being cut back.

Dibble

A pointed implement of wood or metal used to make holes in the ground, especially for plants, seeds, or bulbs.

Dividing

The propagation of plants by separating the roots; more especially the dividing of bulbous and tuberous plants into several plants.

Dormant

A resting condition of plants when growth is not active and the flow of sap is stopped.

Double Flowers

Commonly the result of the substitution of brightly coloured petals for stamens or pistils. A perfect double flower has no stamens or pistils, hence is sterile and the plant must be propagated by cuttings.