Fun with Useless Garden Trivia Stuff?!??
Do you know the difference between Corylus and Corylopsis? Well you don’t have to know the answer for this fun gardening trivia quiz. Gardeners or garden lovers eager for some fun investigation and a chance to test their knowledge of vegetables, perennials, trees, annuals, pests, weeds and indoor plants are invited to tackle the following quiz. (The answers are in the next post.)
1. That warm feeling from hot peppers is measured in units that honour the man who discovered the complicated way to measure the heat of peppers. What are the units that measure pepper heat?
2. Zucchetta Rampicante is an heirloom vegetable vine from Italy. What type of vegetable is it?
3. Some tomatoes are true vines that don’t stop growing until the frost. Are they determinate or indeterminate plants?
4. This vegetable has many personalities. When it is growing in the herb garden it is often called Chinese parsley. When the seeds are gathered for mildly spicy casseroles and baked goods it is called coriander. Used fresh or dried in India it is called dhania. What is it called when the leaves are harvested for salsas and salads?
5. The flowers, stems, leaves and seeds of foxgloves are very attractive but deadly. What makes this popular perennial so harmful?
6. Whirling butterflies is the cultivar name of a perennial with dancing blooms on long wiry stems. The flowers open whitish pink and turn rosy pink as they age. What is the plant?
7. Some perennials have a colour identity problem. Purple coneflower is not really purple it is pink. ‘Husker Red’ is a foxglove penstemon that in real life has maroon tipped leaves and soft lavender flowers with white throats. What is the flower colour of a vigorous groundcover called Lamium ‘Beacon Silver’?
8. Why is Physostegia called the obedient plant when it spreads so disobediently?
9. Ligularias have big, bold leaves that often look like wilted lettuce in the garden. Where would this plant be happier?
10. Black walnut trees exude a toxic material from their roots to exclude other broad-leaved plants (including their own seedlings) from growing nearby and providing competition. What is the toxic substance?
11. The oil from the roots of a tree native to most of the eastern part of the United States and Southern Ontario was originally used to flavour root beer. What is this tree with mitten shaped leaves?
12. This massive native tree has a botanical name that is derived from the Greek word “leirion” meaning lily and dendron meaning “tree”. Native peoples used the tall straight trunks of this tree for large canoes carrying 20 people or more. The attractive yellow and orange flowers bloom in late May and early June. What is this tree?
13. What tree is the official tree of Maine and Ontario, Canada?
14. Aucuparia is part of a botanical name for a small tree or tall shrub meaning “I catch birds”. What is this plant?
15. This ornamental plant in the annual garden still produces a few tubers like its close relatives found in the grocery story vegetable section. What is it?
16. Deadheading is a term for a frequent practice done by anyone growing marigolds, geraniums and zinnias. What is happening to these plants?
17. One of the most popular cannas for dramatic effect has bronzy purple and yellow striped leaves and orange blooms. What is the name of this canna?
18. This annual is called false Queen Anne’s Lace or Bishop flower for its cluster of lacy white blooms. How tall does it grow?
19. Zinnia flowers come in a rainbow of colours. What unusual colour is the one called ‘Envy’?
20. Where in the world is annual lobelia (Lobelia erinus) native?
21. Which voracious green caterpillar can reach 4 inches (10 cm) in length while devouring the vegetable garden?
22. These dime size black spots form on the upper surface of maple leaves during the second half of the summer. What is this called?
23. Which four houseplant and tropical-attacking insects excrete a substance called honeydew?
24. Cutting both ends out of a metal soup can and pushing it 2 inches (5 cm) into the lawn is a good way to tell if an underground insect is present. Which serious lawn pest potentially floats to the top a few minutes after water is added to the can?
25. A white dusty coating on a lilac leaf is a fungus disease. What is it?
26. This vine, shrub or groundcover plant has three leaflets, white berries and small greenish-white blooms. Most people regret coming into contact with the plant’s sap. What is the plant?
27. The stems on this weed are triangular. It loves to grow in moist, sandy fields or gardens throughout most of the warm and temperate zones of the world. What is it?
28. This weed looks like a scouring brush because it has no leaves, flowers or seeds. It reproduces by spores and spreads by underground stems. The stems can easily be pulled apart at the nodes and put back together like interconnecting pipe. What is the name of this plant?
29. Ragweed has inconspicuous male flowers that produce huge quantities of light pollen that can fly in the wind for more than 125 miles (200 km). This plant is the most important cause of hay fever allergy suffering during which two months?
30. Poison hemlock, goutweed, Queen Anne’s lace, and water parsnip all belong to the same family of plants. What is this family called?
Indoor and Tender Plants
31. What is the botanical name for weeping fig?
32. Frangipani is a large tropical plant known for its colourful blooms and outstanding _________.
33. Bromeliads belong to the same family as this popular tropical fruit. What is the famous bromeliad family member?
34. The looking glass tree is named for its silvery mirror-like foliage that reflects the sun. What is this tropical tree?
35. Kiss-me-quick or yesterday-today-and-tomorrow is the name of a tropical shrub that has flowers that are pale violet when they first open. After a day the fragrant flowers change colour to white. Which plant is this?