off topic, bloom / flower / back yard

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 12:24:56 PST
At the risk of sounding my own trumpet, I might mention that the 
latest issue of the Rock Garden Quarterly (the NARGS journal) 
includes an article I wrote on "the public and private rock garden." 
It deals with the rock garden full of mostly simple plants I built 
near the road at my new house, and the one full of plants that might 
likely die on me that resides in the "back yard," next to the bulb 
house. The illustrations show a typical suburban American house lot 
(albeit double the size of most) complete with driveway the size of 
Delaware, probably installed by a previous owner to accommodate the 
boat and the motor home. I'm still thinking about what to grow on the 
driveway; George Schenk once wrote a book "Gardening on Hard 
Surfaces," but it's heavily inclined toward tropical climates. For 
the time being, the driveway is an excellent place to have mulch and 
grit dumped.

At the moment, the driveway, the garden, and all associated spaces 
are covered in a daffodil's depth of snow and about a centimeter of 
ice. I'm catching up in the office and wishing I could watch the 
Olympics, but the TV satellite dish is, unfortunately, also glazed 
beyond its adaptive threshold. At least my internet is cable!

After writing my initial post on this thread I wondered if the 
current use of "garden" for any open space around a house in Britain 
is a recent innovation accompanying the spread of suburban detached 
housing. There isn't much pre-19th-century British literature focused 
on the domestic conditions of the middle and working classes, so I 
don't know where one would look to find out what an artisan or a 
clerk, or their wives, called it.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA. waiting for the thaw



At 08:54 PM 2/8/2014, you wrote:
>Brian wrote:
>
> >>But, please, what is the U.S.A. English term for the British back yard????
>
>I'm pretty sure there is no term for that in American English. The term
>"yard" in California (and I think most of the US) means all of the lot that
>is not occupied by the house, including the lawn(s), vegetable garden,
>patio, swimming pool, lighted basketball court, barbecue, greenhouse, and
>parking area for the motorhome.




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