For gardeners (friends and family) here’s a short quiz to amuse, entertain and stimulate. From puzzling to challenging, these 40 questions will test your knowledge of all things horticultural.
Do the quiz on your own or gather others around and work at it together to see who knows what.
Good luck. Have fun.
1. What item of clothing did Peter Rabbit lose when Mr. McGregor chased him out of his garden?
2. The Monkey Puzzle tree is native to which two neighbouring countries in South America?
3. In which city is the famous Chelsea Flower Show held every May?
4. Complete this song lyric: “When it’s spring again, I’ll bring again . . . . . from Amsterdam.”
5. In Alice in Wonderland, what colour were the Queen of Hearts’ soldiers painting the roses?
6. What was the real first name of the great British landscape gardener Capability Brown?
7. What is the name given to the art of clipping trees and hedges into decorative shapes?
8. Simon and Garfunkel asked: “Are you going to Scarborough Fair? —-, —-, —- and ——“.
9. In The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, what kind of flower blooms on the prince’s asteroid?
10. Name the king who is credited with creating the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?
11. True or false: a perennial is a plant that lives for more than a year?
12. Giverny is a famous garden outside Paris that was built by which French Impressionist?
13. In which European city is the medieval Islamic garden known as Generalife?
14. Who was the landscape architect who designed the gardens of Versailles for Louis XIV?
15. When is the best time to plant tulips and daffodils — spring or fall?
16. What is the common name for the antirrhinum flower?
17. Diplomat Harold Nicolson and his wife Vita Sackville-West created this world famous garden in the 1930s in England.
18. Which French fashion designer bought and restored the Majorelle garden in Morocco in the 1980s?
19. Complete this lyric from Don McLean’s song about Vincent Van Gogh: “Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the —- Catch the breeze and the winter chills”.
20. Santa Claus is often quoted as using this word but he has yet to be seen using this garden tool.
21. Born in 1707, this Swedish botanist is known as the Father of Taxonomy.
22. A cloche can protect plants from what?
23. Architect Sir Edward Lutyens designed her house at Munstead Wood near Godalming and she designed many gardens to go with his buildings.
24. True or false: Rhododendrons prefer acidic to alkaline soil?
25. What garden pest can be controlled by using a beer trap?
26. The 200-million year old Wollemi pine was thought to be extinct until it was found in a gorge in 1994 in this country?
27. Monarda gets this more familiar name from being used as a folk remedy for bee stings.
28. Does rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) bloom in spring or late-summer?
29. Daffodils are considered totally resistant to being eaten by deer. True or false?
30. Robbie Burns said his love was like one of these, newly sprung in June.
31. Complete this well-known statement: “The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth, one is nearer God’s heart in a garden, than – – – – “.
32. Achillea was named after the mythical Greek hero Achilles but it also answers to this name.
33. Complete this line from Percy B. Green’s famous poem: “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of – – – –.”
34. In Holland, this kitchen garden covering 32 acres becomes a showcase of seven million flowering bulbs every spring.
35. Apollo chased after her but when he caught her she turned into a laurel tree.
36. Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, are credited with being the first to put one of these at Windsor Castle in 1841.
37. This large 16th century garden in the heart of Florence was the playground of the Medici family and today is an outdoor museum for classical works of sculpture.
38. What kind of tree grows from a little acorn?
39. A triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch that now hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid is better known as The Garden of ——- ——–.
40. Which famous writer said in his poem The Glory of the Garden “half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees”?