Gardening A to Z: C

Useful information for you, brought to you by Garden NZ

Introduction
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Cactus
A member of the large plant family Cactaceae, almost wholly native to America and the most significant family of succulent plants, most species with very sharp spines. Used loosely by some gardeners to refer to any succulent or spiky plant.

Calcium
Calcium is responsible for strong growth and important in fruit set and water uptake. A major constituent of cell walls, also involved in root and leaf development, seed production and maturity.

Camellias
Camellias, which bloom in the cooler months, are an asset in any garden. They add colour and style to a garden, plus reward you with a flowering display that is impressive.

Cameo Gazebos
Cameo Gazebos are built using the finest kiln dried timber including laminated posts, quality fibreglass roof panels finished in any colour and galvanised or stainless steel fittings for durability and low maintenance.

Campbell Tool Company
The Campbell Tool Company have a large range of quality handcrafted garden tools. Each tool is handcrafted in New Zealand.

Cane
A branch or stem that is slender, straight and not very woody, usually produced by a single season’s growth.

Capsule
A fruit developing from two or more fused carpels which when ripe dries and splits open to release the seeds. If formed from a single carpel, such a fruit is usually termed a pod or follicle.

Carrots
Carrots are hardy biennials that are grown as annuals. The have a rosette of finely divided, fernlike leaves growing from a swollen, fleshy taproot.

Caterpillars
Caterpillars are chewers and will munch their way through their favourite plants very quickly so spray as soon as possible after you see the first signs.

Catkin
The type of flower cluster, usually pendulous, found on such plants as willows or alders. The individual flowers, usually one sex only, are tiny and generally have no petals, being pollinated by the wind.

Cave's Tree Nursery
Started with the aim of providing a large range of unusual trees and shrubs. After twelve years of supplying NZ garden centres and exporting to Australia, America, South Korea and England, it became obvious that selling direct to Kiwi customers was the best way to develop a steady market.

Cedar Lodge Nurseries
Cedar Lodge Nurseries was established in 1974 as the result of a keen interest in Conifers by David and Noeline Sampson. Since then we have developed our passion, becoming New Zealand's leading Conifer Nursery producing a very comprehensive range of these wonderfully varied trees and shrubs that represents much of which is available world wide.

Chalk
A kind of soft, porous limestone that on weathering produces very fine, powdery, alkaline soil in which many garden plants are difficult to grow. Chalk soils are common in parts of the UK.

Chives
The most delicate member of the onion family. Chopped leaves offer great improvement to salads, soups, vegetables, omelettes, and cheese dishes. Essential kitchen herb! Palatable as it is to humans, nasty insects stay away in droves from it and neighbouring plants.

Christmas Present Ideas
Christmas is a great time to share your best kept garden secrets with loved ones. Buying gardening gifts for fellow gardeners is always rewarding. This year we can offer you some special deals from some of the main players in the gardening world.

Chrysanthemum Midge
See Midge.

Cineraria
Just being able to pronounce Cineraria let alone spell it can be challenging – but that's where it stops. These treasures of Winter are just "must haves" for brightening up the inside of your home.

Citrus
There is always something to do with your citrus trees. Refer to our citrus section for suggestions on caring for your citrus trees.

Clay
A major component of soils, consisting of very fine particles of mineral origin that swell and become sticky when they take up water. A high proportion of clay in a soil makes it difficult to dig and impedes both root penetration and drainage.

Clifton Homestead Nursery
Clifton Homestead Nursery is a small nursery located in South Otago and specialise in growing Hellebores.

Climber
A plant with stems too long and flexible to be self supporting and which raises itself to the light by climbing into and over other plants. It may attach itself to its support by twining around it, as jasmine or honey-suckle do; by means of tendrils (grapes, peas); by short aerial roots (ivy); or by suckers (Virginia creeper). The latter two need no trellis and are termed self-clinging climbers. Some climbers attach themselves only loosely to their supports and need to be tied in place. The term ‘vine’, while applicable only to the grape, is often used for any climbing plant, especially in the USA.

Cloche
A miniature, portable greenhouse placed over crops in the open ground to protect them from cold or encourage early development. Traditionally made from two or four pieces of glass in a wire frame, but can be simply a wire frame clad in transparent polythene.

Clone
A group of plants propagated asexually (that is, by cuttings, grafting, division, etc) from a single individual and thus genetically all identical, such as roses and fruit trees.

Clubroot
A disease of cabbages and related vegetables and ornamental plants in the brassica family, such as stocks, caused by the slime mould fungus Plasmodiophora Brassica.

Coastal Gardening
Gardening near the sea has its own special challenges.

Colony
A group of apparently separate plants in the one small area of ground, spreading from a single initial plant by vegetative means such as rhizomes, stolons, bulbils on flowering stems, or even fallen leaves in the case of some succulents of the ‘mother-of-millions’ type.

Columnar
Shaped like column or narrow cylinder, used to describe the crown shape of certain trees.

Companion plants
Plant your companion plants for specific reasons – e.g. to deter insect attack, to attract bees for pollination.

Composite
The botanist’s term for a daisy, from the way the ‘flowers’ are in fact made up of many small flowers.

Compost
The most effective of all fertilisers, it is made form organic matter such as leaves, grass clippings and manure which has been allowed to rot for a few weeks or months until it has turned black and crumbly; in orchid growing, the soil-free medium, which may or may not contain compost from the compost heap, in which the plants are grown.

Composters – Earthmaker
Earthmaker Enterprises Ltd brings you the Earthmaker Composter, a revolutionary organic waste processor with a three bin process.

Compound (of any plant organ)
Consisting of smaller, simple units – thus a compound leaf consists of two to many leaflets arranged in regular fashion; a compound umbel consists of many small umbels on stalks which are themselves arranged in an umbel (as in carrots); and a compound fruit consists of many fruits pressed or fused together on a single stalk (as in pineapple).

Concrete Crafts
Concrete 'n' Crafts is a family business situated in Dannevirke, Southern Hawke's Bay producing concrete garden ornaments that are both unique and popular, having found favour with customers from as far north as Whangarei and as far south as Queenstown. Our shop is situated on west side of the main street almost opposite KFC.

Cone
The structure that encloses the primitive flowers and then the seeds of conifers (pines, cypresses, etc) and cycads. It is made up of overlapping scales, which become woody when the seeds ripen.

Conifer
A member of a primitive order of flowering plants (the Gymnospermae), characterised by their cones and usually needle-like leaves. They are all shrubs or trees, usually evergreen, and the hardiest trees in cold climates; they supply the bulk of the world’s timber. Pines, cypresses, sequoias and junipers are examples.

Conifers
Conifers are amongst the most reliable groups of plants for your garden. They have so mush to offer – all year round colour, texture, form and feature, durability and very low maintenance. Gardens, which feature conifers, have a well-groomed appearance.

Conservatory
A glassed-in area for growing frost-tender plants, usually attached to or forming part of a house.

Container
Any item that can contain soil or other growing medium, in which a plant can be grown, sold, and moved around to any desired position – including pots, tubs and hanging baskets.

Container Gardening
Colourful, versatile and individual, container gardening allows you "grow" in even the smallest spaces.

Cool-temperate (of climates)
Those in the cooler half of the temperate zones, essentially those regions between about 40 and 60 degrees latitude though extending closer to the equator in highlands and large continental landmasses of the northern hemisphere. Regions between 60 degrees north and the Arctic Circle are usually termed subarctic.

Copper
Intensifies colour and flavour. Essential in several enzyme systems, particularly in new tissues.

Coriander
Seeds add fresh, spicy flavour to soups and stews. Main ingredients in chili sauces, curries and exotic dishes.

Corm
A bulb-like organ, usually growing underground but without the scales (fleshy modified leaves) of a bulb, and often simply called a bulb by gardeners, such as gladiolus and freesias. When a corm flowers the old corm dies and the plant creates a new one on top of it; bulbs are usually more or less permanent structures.

Cottage Gardens
A riot of colour and abundance cottage gardens are popular worldwide.

Courtyard Gardens
You can have a stunning garden in a very small area.

Creeper
A plant that makes long shoots that grow along the ground, usually rooting as it goes. The distinction between a climber and a creeper is not clear cut – many creepers will climb if given the chance, and some climbers will creep if there is nothing to climb on, such as ivy and Virginia creeper. See Climbers.

Creeping (of perennials and shrubs)
With stems running along the ground, in many cases putting out roots.

Crop
A mass planting, usually of annual plants and usually running into acres at a time, grown for food or some other economic purpose. Crop plants are species commonly grown in this way, for example wheat, potatoes, sunflowers.

Crop Rotation
Helps prevent the build up of disease in the soil. Try to follow green crops with root crops. Crops such as cabbages can be followed by potatoes.

Cross
Another name for a hybrid, though somewhat vaguer in meaning.

Crown
The more or less permanent base of a herbaceous plant from which the leaves and flower stems grow upwards and the roots downwards; the upper part of a tree, consisting of the branches and top section of the trunk; the corona of a narcissus or narcissus-like plant.

Christies Garden Products
We are manufacturers of a wide range of Glasshouses (Greenhouses) , from mini-glasshouses, to home garden glasshouses, to commercial glasshouses. We also manufacture a wide range of accessories, including staging, potting benches, metal garden stakes etc.

Cultivar
A variety of plant which has arisen as the result of cultivation, that is, not naturally, usually by means of hybridization. It may be propagated by any suitable means, and the rules of botany state that it must not be named in Latin but should be given in Roman type with single quotes, for example ‘Queen Elizabeth’, ‘Model of Perfection’. Cultivars that arose before these rulings and were given Latin names are treated similarly, giving rise to such names as Acer palmatum ‘Dissectum Atropurpureum’.

Cultivated (of plants)
Domesticated for use in gardens, agriculture or forestry, with the implication that cultivation techniques appropriate to the plant have been worked out.

Cutting
A piece of stem or root cut from a plant and used for propagation. According to the state of maturity of the stem from which it is taken, a cutting may be classed as a softwood, semi-mature or handwood cutting.

Cycad
The other major group of gymnosperms apart from the conifers, consisting of long-lived flowerless plants with palm-like or fern-like, leathery fronds springing from a short trunk or caudex. Male (pollen) and female (seed) cones are borne on separate plants and may be quite large. Cycads are an ancient group, most abundant in the ‘age of dinosaurs (Jurassic and Cretaceous) just before the flowering plants began to diversify. Less than 200 species survive today, confined to warmer regions of the world.

Cyclamen
Cyclamen or commonly known as "Winter Florists" are well known as reliable plants in most households throughout the country.