What does mulching a bed with bark or compost mainly achieve?

It holds moisture in the soil and suppresses weed seedlings

It raises the acidity of the soil within days

It feeds the plant directly through its leaves

It kills insects living in the top layer of soil

An annual plant is one that does what?

Completes its whole life cycle, seed to seed, within a single growing season

Flowers once every twelve months over many years

Sheds all its leaves each autumn and regrows them

Needs replanting only after several years have passed

Why do gardeners remove spent flowers, a practice known as deadheading?

To stop the plant setting seed, so it keeps producing more flowers

To prevent fungal infection reaching the roots

To reduce how much water the plant needs

To encourage the stems to turn woody before winter

Soil pH matters to gardeners chiefly because it affects what?

Which nutrients the roots are able to take up

How much water the soil can hold

The temperature of the root zone in spring

How quickly seeds break dormancy

A plant grown from a cutting of another plant is what?

Genetically identical to the plant it came from

A cross between that plant and the nearest neighbour

Reliably more vigorous than the plant it came from

Sterile, and unable to flower or set seed

Grafting is used in fruit growing mainly in order to do what?

Join a chosen variety to a rootstock that controls the tree's size and hardiness

Create entirely new varieties by combining two parents

Speed up germination of the seed in the nursery

Protect the young trunk from wind damage

What does it mean to harden off young plants?

To expose indoor-raised seedlings to outdoor conditions gradually before planting out

To let the stems thicken by withholding water for several weeks

To firm the soil down around the roots after planting

To let a light frost kill off the weakest seedlings

Crop rotation in a vegetable garden is practised mainly to do what?

Break the build-up of soil pests and diseases and even out nutrient demands

Make the watering schedule easier to keep track of

Keep the beds looking different from one year to the next

Allow the soil to be dug more deeply each spring

Peat-free composts have been widely adopted because peat extraction does what?

Damages bogs that store large amounts of carbon and support uncommon species

Makes the resulting compost too acidic for most plants

Consumes far more water than any alternative material

Introduces large numbers of weed seeds into gardens

A plant described as "half hardy" in a temperate garden can be expected to do what?

Tolerate cool conditions but not a frost

Survive severe frost but not summer heat

Grow only under glass, never outdoors

Live for exactly two growing seasons

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Plants & Gardening Easy ⚡ 10 Questions ⏱️ ~6 Mins +100 XP

A Gardener's Year

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Yes. You can replay any quiz as many times as you like, and the questions and answer options are reshuffled each time.

Most garden advice is passed on as a rule without the reason. These ten questions supply the reasons.

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Questions

~6m

Duration

Easy

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+100

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About this topic

Gardening runs on a small set of principles applied over and over. Cover bare soil and it holds water and grows fewer weeds. Take a cutting and you get the parent plant again exactly; sow a seed and you get a shuffle of two parents. Move a plant from a windowsill straight into a March garden and it will sulk or die, because leaves grown in shelter are physically different from leaves grown in wind. The commercial fruit industry rests on one of these principles almost entirely. Nearly every apple tree in cultivation is two plants joined near the base, a named variety grafted onto a rootstock chosen for size and hardiness, because apples do not come true from seed and a tree on its own roots would grow far too large to pick. The questions here cover propagation, soil, timing and the vocabulary on the labels.

Questions & answers

A Gardener's Year: all 10 questions and answers

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1What does mulching a bed with bark or compost mainly achieve?
- A It raises the acidity of the soil within days
- B It feeds the plant directly through its leaves
- C It kills insects living in the top layer of soil
- D It holds moisture in the soil and suppresses weed seedlings Correct
Answer: D. It holds moisture in the soil and suppresses weed seedlings

Why: A loose layer also insulates roots against sudden frost, and it works best spread over soil that is already thoroughly damp.
2An annual plant is one that does what?
- A Sheds all its leaves each autumn and regrows them
- B Needs replanting only after several years have passed
- C Completes its whole life cycle, seed to seed, within a single growing season Correct
- D Flowers once every twelve months over many years
Answer: C. Completes its whole life cycle, seed to seed, within a single growing season

Why: Biennials take two seasons, making leaf in the first and flowering in the second, which is why carrots and parsley run to seed in their second year.
3Why do gardeners remove spent flowers, a practice known as deadheading?
- A To encourage the stems to turn woody before winter
- B To stop the plant setting seed, so it keeps producing more flowers Correct
- C To prevent fungal infection reaching the roots
- D To reduce how much water the plant needs
Answer: B. To stop the plant setting seed, so it keeps producing more flowers

Why: Setting seed is expensive, and many plants stop flowering once it begins. It also tidies plants such as roses, which hold dead heads on the stem for weeks.
4Soil pH matters to gardeners chiefly because it affects what?
- A Which nutrients the roots are able to take up Correct
- B How much water the soil can hold
- C The temperature of the root zone in spring
- D How quickly seeds break dormancy
Answer: A. Which nutrients the roots are able to take up

Why: Most vegetables prefer slightly acid to neutral ground. In very alkaline soil iron becomes locked up, and leaves yellow between their veins as a result.
5A plant grown from a cutting of another plant is what?
- A A cross between that plant and the nearest neighbour
- B Reliably more vigorous than the plant it came from
- C Sterile, and unable to flower or set seed
- D Genetically identical to the plant it came from Correct
Answer: D. Genetically identical to the plant it came from

Why: This is why named apple and rose varieties are propagated this way. Growing them from seed would reshuffle the parentage and lose the variety.
6Grafting is used in fruit growing mainly in order to do what?
- A Speed up germination of the seed in the nursery
- B Protect the young trunk from wind damage
- C Join a chosen variety to a rootstock that controls the tree's size and hardiness Correct
- D Create entirely new varieties by combining two parents
Answer: C. Join a chosen variety to a rootstock that controls the tree's size and hardiness

Why: Almost every apple tree sold is two plants joined at a visible knuckle near the base, and dwarfing rootstocks are what made modern orchards short enough to pick by hand.
7What does it mean to harden off young plants?
- A To let a light frost kill off the weakest seedlings
- B To expose indoor-raised seedlings to outdoor conditions gradually before planting out Correct
- C To let the stems thicken by withholding water for several weeks
- D To firm the soil down around the roots after planting
Answer: B. To expose indoor-raised seedlings to outdoor conditions gradually before planting out

Why: A sheltered seedling has a thin waxy cuticle and slack control of its pores, and a week or two of increasing exposure lets both adjust before it is planted out.
8Crop rotation in a vegetable garden is practised mainly to do what?
- A Break the build-up of soil pests and diseases and even out nutrient demands Correct
- B Make the watering schedule easier to keep track of
- C Keep the beds looking different from one year to the next
- D Allow the soil to be dug more deeply each spring
Answer: A. Break the build-up of soil pests and diseases and even out nutrient demands

Why: Problems such as clubroot accumulate wherever the same plant family returns every year. Legumes are usually worked into the sequence because they leave nitrogen behind.
9Peat-free composts have been widely adopted because peat extraction does what?
- A Makes the resulting compost too acidic for most plants
- B Consumes far more water than any alternative material
- C Introduces large numbers of weed seeds into gardens
- D Damages bogs that store large amounts of carbon and support uncommon species Correct
Answer: D. Damages bogs that store large amounts of carbon and support uncommon species

Why: Peat accumulates at roughly a millimetre a year, so a drained bog is not replaced on any useful timescale. Bark, coir and composted green waste are the usual substitutes.
10A plant described as "half hardy" in a temperate garden can be expected to do what?
- A Grow only under glass, never outdoors
- B Live for exactly two growing seasons
- C Tolerate cool conditions but not a frost Correct
- D Survive severe frost but not summer heat
Answer: C. Tolerate cool conditions but not a frost

Why: Such plants are raised indoors and set out once the last frost has passed, which is the date most spring sowing calendars are built around.

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