Gardening quiz:You could win a €300 voucher for the Mr Middleton Garden Shop or an Irish Gardensubscription
Welcome, fellow gardeners, to our annual gardening quiz. It's time to root around in your gardening books, delve deep into the internet and dig up 40 answers. No prizes for me, alas, for those awful metaphors, but, as usual, we've some lovely ones for you.
Our first prize is a gift voucher for €300 from Mr Middleton Garden Shop, to spend at the emporium (on Mary Street, Dublin 1), online (www.mrmiddleton.com) or by mail order (catalogues available from 01-8731118). It stocks 3,000 garden products, including plants, seeds, bulbs, wildlife supplies, plant houses, tools and propagators.
We also have three runners-up prizes of a year's subscription to the Irish Gardenmagazine (10 issues, worth €44) for yourself, or a friend if you're already a subscriber.
If the correct entries outnumber the prizes, we will draw lots from a hat. And even if you don't get all the answers, send your entries along anyway - you could still be a winner. One entry per household, please.
Send your answers to The Irish TimesChristmas Gardening Quiz, The Irish TimesBuilding, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2, or by e-mail to jpowers@irish-times.ie (no attachments, please) to arrive by Thursday, January 4th. The answers and the winners' names will appear in the January 27th column.
1What plant is commonly known as the Christmas rose?
2Black spot and powdery mildew are diseases of what thorny plant?
3Snowflake is the common name of what bulb?
4Slugs and snails are hermaphrodites, and after mating both individuals go off and lay eggs. True or false?
5What is the name of the rhubarb-leaved alien species that has become a pest in the west of Ireland?
6The sunken garden in the photograph was designed by the famous architect Edwin Lutyens. Where is it?
7 Seasonally speaking, what do these shrubs have in common: Jasminum nudiflorum, Mahonia'Charity' and Sarcococca confusa?
8 Which designer's garden won Best Show Garden at this year's Chelsea Flower Show?
9 Blossom-end rot is a disease that affects what red fruit?
10 Which of these compostable materials contains more carbon: autumn leaves or grass clippings?
11 Which writer living at Sissinghurst Castle, in Kent, wrote a long pastoral poem entitled The Garden?
12 "I ram perilous potato" is an anagram of which two shrubs suitable for coastal gardens?
13 Which of these three stately homes and gardens, now in the hands of the State, was owned by the Guinness family: Farmleigh, Malahide Castle, Marlay Park?
14 All adult vine weevils are males. True or false?
15 Which bulb is commonly known as Star of Bethlehem?
16 Which Wexford nursery won a gold medal for its display at this year's Chelsea Flower Show?
17 The genus Pelargoniumis commonly known by what name?
18 What is the best way to propagate lettuce: by stem-tip cuttings, from seed or by layering?
19 Which of these, holly, ivy or mistletoe, was one of the "nobles of the wood" under Brehon law?
20 Lumper is a variety of what edible plant?
21 What are the blue flowers in the photograph called?
22 Who wrote the poem The Glory of the Garden, in which these lines appear: "Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees / That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees"?
23 Which of the following garden plants is poisonous: Brassica napus, Aconitum nappellus, Vicia faba?
24 Saucers of beer are often recommended as useful traps for what garden pests?
25 Which tree, native to both southwestern Ireland and the Mediterranean (but not Britain), bears fruit and flowers at the same time?
26 Aside from its formidable name, what is remarkable about the rose Rosa sericea subsp omeiensis f pteracantha?
27 In general, which plants are more suitable for a dry garden: those with small hard leaves or those with big floppy leaves?
28 A rose grows in the garden, but on which common piece of gardening equipment may it also be found?
29 What is the name of the Irish garden festival taking place next June in the Phoenix Park?
30 Chocolate spot, cloth spot and dollar spot: which of these is a fictitious plant disease?
31 In which grand Co Wicklow garden will you find the winged horse (which is one of a pair) in the photograph?
32 Not all holly plants produce berries. True or false?
33 Palmate, pinnate and pinnatifid are terms associated with what part of a plant?
34 Who wrote the children's book The Secret Garden?
35 Which of the following gardening accessories is fictitious: dibber, trug, grubber or brock?
36 Ulmus americana 'Princeton' is a variety of elm tree that is reputed to be tolerant of what disease?
37 What is the genus of the yellow-and-green plant in the photograph?
38 Ground beetle, lacewing, wireworm and earthworm: which of these is not a friend of the gardener?
39 What is no-till gardening?
40 Buddleja davidii, Verbena bonariensis, large sedums and nettles are plants that attract what creature?