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If you're new to gardening, you're probably still working on a few basics. You can tell a pansy from a petunia, but you still haven't quite figured out what the three numbers on the side of a bag of fertilizer stand for, or what mulch is, or what exactly people mean when they say they have been deadheading. What you could use is a basic primer in the language of gardening, a quick guide to rudimentary garden terms like biennial and bare-root, cultivar and carpet bedding, humus and hybrids, pollarding and pricking out. So here's an easy A-to-Z of basic terms.

If you happen to hit Walker Lake in Muskoka on certain weekends, you may just see a floating living room trundling by. Kitted out in cushy furniture, there goes a couch, a pair of chaises longues and a fridge stocked with drinks - if only Gilligan's friends had had a raft like this.

While it is relatively easy to grow a vegetable garden just about anywhere, people wishing to grow fruit trees in an urban environment face challenges.

The best small-space garden I have ever visited belongs to Richard Mosselman, a letter carrier in Victoria with a passion for plants, an eye for creative design and a knack for gracious artistic expression.

Well, in many ways, plants are no different to humans. If malnourished, neglected, exposed to unfavourable conditions, and generally mistreated, they become stressed and quickly get sick and decline.