Gardening Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
This gardening quiz has 118 free questions with answers and covers everything from the potting shed to the palace grounds: how compost, soil pH and NPK fertiliser work, why hydrangeas change colour, what deadheading and espalier mean, and which plants are annuals, biennials or perennials. It visits Kew, Versailles, Keukenhof and Monet's Giverny, meets Capability Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, Luther Burbank and Monty Don, and takes in tulip mania, victory gardens, the Chelsea Flower Show and the seed vault buried in Arctic permafrost. The early questions suit anyone with a windowsill herb pot; the later ones will stretch allotment veterans and RHS members with the origins of the lawn mower, the science of nitrogen fixation and the wisteria that weighs 250 tons. It makes a good round for a garden club evening, a horticulture class or a rainy-day family quiz. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and reference sources, and each question shows an explanation and its citation once you answer.
30 of 118 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is a plant that completes its whole life cycle in a single growing season called?
An annual
An annual such as the garden pea germinates, flowers, sets seed and dies within one growing season, so it must be sown afresh each year.
Q 02Parsley and Canterbury bells take how long to complete their life cycle?
Two years
Two years: parsley and Canterbury bells are biennials, spending their first year growing leaves and roots, then flowering, setting seed and dying in the second.
Q 03Grass clippings and food scraps, the 'greens' of a compost heap, are rich in what?
Nitrogen
Green waste such as grass clippings is rich in nitrogen; 'browns' like paper and wood chips supply carbon, and a ratio of about 30:1 carbon to nitrogen composts best.
Q 04On a fertiliser bag's N-P-K numbers, what element is K?
Potassium
K stands for potassium, from its Latin name kalium; with N for nitrogen and P for phosphorus it makes up the three macronutrients printed on every fertiliser bag.
Q 05A soil with a pH reading below 7 is described as what?
Acidic
A pH below 7 is acidic; blueberries and rhododendrons thrive in acidic soil around pH 4.5 to 5.5, while most vegetables prefer a near-neutral 6 to 7.
Q 06In acidic, low-pH soil, what colour do the flowers of many hydrangeas turn?
Blue
Blue: in acidic soil aluminium becomes soluble, the hydrangea takes it up and its flowers turn blue; in alkaline soil the same plant flowers pink.
Q 07Charles Darwin's last book, published in 1881, was a study of which garden helper?
The earthworm
The earthworm: Darwin's 1881 book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms estimated that an acre of arable land could hold about 53,000 of them.
Q 08What is the horticultural practice of removing spent flowers from a plant called?
Deadheading
Deadheading removes faded flowers before they set seed, so the plant redirects energy into new buds and often produces a second flush of blooms.
Q 09What is the technique of training a fruit tree flat against a wall or frame called?
Espalier
Espalier trains a fruit tree flat against a wall or wires in horizontal tiers; a single-tier, free-standing version is called a step-over.
Q 10The Chinese art that parallels Japanese bonsai is called what?
Penjing
Penjing, the Chinese art of miniature trees and landscapes in trays, predates and inspired Japanese bonsai; Korea's equivalent is bunjae and Vietnam's is hòn non bộ.
Q 11Which of these shrubs is a classic choice for topiary?
Box
Box (Buxus) is the classic topiary shrub, dense and tolerant of hard clipping; yew, bay, holly and privet are the other regulars.
Q 12Kew Gardens in London, a World Heritage Site, was founded in which year?
1759
Kew was founded in 1759, when Princess Augusta, mother of George III, began a nine-acre botanic garden on the estate; it became a World Heritage Site in 2003.
Q 13Which landscape designer perfected the French formal garden style at Versailles?
André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre laid out the gardens of Versailles for Louis XIV from 1661, with the Grand Canal, parterres and fountains that define the French formal style.
Q 21In 1893 the US Supreme Court ruled that, for tariff purposes, the tomato was a what?
A vegetable
In Nix v. Hedden (1893) the court called the tomato a vegetable for tariff purposes because it is served with dinner rather than dessert, though botanically it is a berry.
Q 22The 'Three Sisters' planted by indigenous peoples of the Americas are maize, beans and what?
Squash
The corn supports the beans, the beans fix nitrogen and the squash leaves shade out weeds and hold moisture.
Q 23Tulip mania, the famous speculative bubble, collapsed in which year?
1637
Prices collapsed in February 1637; at the peak a single Viceroy bulb was offered for 3,000 to 4,200 guilders, when a skilled craftsman earned about 300 guilders a year.
Q 14About how many flower bulbs are planted each year at Keukenhof in the Netherlands?
7 million
About 7 million bulbs are hand-planted each autumn in the 32-hectare park at Lisse, which opens for roughly eight weeks each spring and is best known for its tulips.
Q 15The village of Giverny in Normandy is famous for the garden of which painter?
Claude Monet
Claude Monet lived at Giverny from 1883 until his death in 1926; the water-lily pond and Japanese bridge he made there became the subject of his late Nymphéas paintings.
Q 16The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are unique among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World for what reason?
Their location has never been established
Legend says Nebuchadnezzar II built them for his wife Amytis, who missed the green hills of her homeland; some scholars now place them at Nineveh.
Q 17How did the 18th-century landscape gardener Lancelot Brown earn his famous nickname?
He told clients their land had potential for improvement
He designed more than 170 parks, including Blenheim, and many survive today.
Q 18Gertrude Jekyll is best remembered for her garden partnership with which architect?
Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens designed the houses and Gertrude Jekyll the planting on some 100 projects, beginning with her own home, Munstead Wood in Surrey, which he built in 1896.
Q 19Which famous white-petalled garden flower was among Luther Burbank's 800-plus plant varieties?
The Shasta daisy
Burbank introduced the Shasta daisy in 1901 after years of crossing daisy species; his other successes include the Santa Rosa plum, the plumcot and a spineless cactus.
Q 20Monty Don took over as lead presenter of BBC's Gardeners' World in 2003, replacing whom?
Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Titchmarsh left Gardeners' World in 2002 after six years as lead presenter; Monty Don took over in 2003 and later fronted the show from his own garden, Longmeadow.
Q 24Apples, pears, strawberries, cherries and almonds all belong to the same botanical group as which flower?
The rose
All are members of the rose family, Rosaceae, which also gives us plums, peaches, raspberries, quinces and hawthorn.
Q 25The dahlia is the national flower of which country?
Mexico
Mexico declared the dahlia its national flower in 1963; the Aztecs grew it long before the Spanish conquest carried it to Europe, and its tubers store inulin rather than starch.
Q 26Ladybirds are welcomed by gardeners because they eat what?
Aphids
Ladybirds and their larvae eat aphids, an adult taking up to 50 a day, which is why gardeners welcome them on roses and broad beans.
Q 27The 'lady' in ladybird refers to whom?
The Virgin Mary
The name comes from 'Our Lady's bird', a medieval dedication to the Virgin Mary; the seven-spot's red wings were likened to her cloak and its spots to her seven joys and sorrows.
Q 28Which First Lady planted a victory garden on the White House lawn in 1943?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden on the White House lawn in 1943 over the objections of the Department of Agriculture; Americans tended some 20 million victory gardens that year.
Q 29The RHS's Great Spring Show is held each May in the grounds of which London institution?
The Royal Hospital Chelsea
The Chelsea Flower Show has been held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea since 1913; the RHS's Great Spring Show began at its Kensington garden in 1862.
Q 30The Royal Horticultural Society, founded in 1804, has its flagship garden where?
Wisley, Surrey
The society was suggested in 1800 by John Wedgwood, son of the potter Josiah, and now runs five gardens.