1.
Bergen
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Bergen, historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Hordaland on the west coast of Norway. At the end of the first quarter of 2016, the population was 278,121. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway, the municipality covers 465 square kilometres and is on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, the city fjord, many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the centre of Hordaland and consists of eight boroughs—Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad. Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s, according to tradition, the city was founded in 1070 by king Olav Kyrre, its name was Bjørgvin, the green meadow among the mountains. It served as Norways capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a city of the Hanseatic League. Until 1789, Bergen enjoyed exclusive rights to trade between Northern Norway and abroad and it was the largest city in Norway until the 1830s when it was surpassed by the capital. What remains of the quays, Bryggen, is a World Heritage Site, the city was hit by numerous fires over the years. The Bergen School of Meteorology was developed at the Geophysical Institute beginning in 1917, the Norwegian School of Economics was founded in 1936, from 1831 to 1972, Bergen was its own county. In 1972 the municipality absorbed four surrounding municipalities and became a part of Hordaland county, the city is an international centre for aquaculture, shipping, offshore petroleum industry and subsea technology, and a national centre for higher education, media, tourism and finance. Bergen Port is Norways busiest in both freight and passengers with over 300 cruise ship calls a year bringing nearly a half a million passengers to Bergen, almost half of the passengers are German or British. The citys main team is SK Brann and the citys unique tradition is the buekorps. Natives speak the distinct Bergensk dialect, the city features Bergen Airport, Flesland, Bergen Light Rail, and is the terminus of the Bergen Line. Four large bridges connect Bergen to its suburban municipalities, Bergen is well known for having a mild winter climate, though with a lot of precipitation. In December - March, the difference between Bergen and Oslo can be up to 30 degrees Celsius, despite the fact that both cities are at approximately 60 degrees North. The Gulf Stream keeps the sea relatively warm, considering the latitude, the city of Bergen was traditionally thought to have been founded by king Olav Kyrre, son of Harald Hardråde in 1070 AD, four years after the Viking Age ended with the Battle of Hastings. Modern research has, however, discovered that a settlement was established already during the 1020s or 1030s
2.
Garden
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A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials, the most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos, which wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden, some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens, use plants sparsely or not at all. Xeriscape gardens use local plants that do not require irrigation or extensive use of other resources while still providing the benefits of a garden environment. Gardens may exhibit structural enhancements, sometimes called follies, including features such as fountains, ponds, waterfalls or creeks, dry creek beds, statuary, arbors, trellises. Some gardens are for ornamental purposes only, while some also produce food crops, sometimes in separate areas. Food-producing gardens are distinguished from farms by their scale, more labor-intensive methods. Flower gardens combine plants of different heights, colors, textures, Gardening is the activity of growing and maintaining the garden. This work is done by an amateur or professional gardener, a gardener might also work in a non-garden setting, such as a park, a roadside embankment, or other public space. Landscape architecture is a professional activity with landscape architects tending to specialise in design for public. See Grad for more complete etymology, the words yard, court, and Latin hortus, are cognates—all referring to an enclosed space. The term garden in British English refers to an enclosed area of land. This would be referred to as a yard in American English, garden design is the creation of plans for the layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Gardens may be designed by garden owners themselves, or by professionals, professional garden designers tend to be trained in principles of design and horticulture, and have a knowledge and experience of using plants. Some professional garden designers are also landscape architects, a formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree. Garden design can be divided into two groups, formal and naturalistic gardens. All of these considerations are subject to the limitations of the budget, most gardens consist of a mix of natural and constructed elements, although even very natural gardens are always an inherently artificial creation
3.
Flower
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A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in plants that are floral. The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs, Flowers may facilitate outcrossing or allow selfing. Some flowers produce diaspores without fertilization, Flowers contain sporangia and are the site where gametophytes develop. Many flowers have evolved to be attractive to animals, so as to them to be vectors for the transfer of pollen. After fertilization, the ovary of the flower develops into fruit containing seeds, the essential parts of a flower can be considered in two parts, the vegetative part, consisting of petals and associated structures in the perianth, and the reproductive or sexual parts. A stereotypical flower consists of four kinds of structures attached to the tip of a short stalk, each of these kinds of parts is arranged in a whorl on the receptacle. The four main whorls are as follows, Collectively the calyx, corolla, the next whorl toward the apex, composed of units called petals, which are typically thin, soft and colored to attract animals that help the process of pollination. Androecium, the whorl, consisting of units called stamens. Stamens consist of two parts, a called a filament, topped by an anther where pollen is produced by meiosis. Gynoecium, the innermost whorl of a flower, consisting of one or more units called carpels, the carpel or multiple fused carpels form a hollow structure called an ovary, which produces ovules internally. Ovules are megasporangia and they in turn produce megaspores by meiosis which develop into female gametophytes and these give rise to egg cells. The gynoecium of a flower is described using an alternative terminology wherein the structure one sees in the innermost whorl is called a pistil. A pistil may consist of a carpel or a number of carpels fused together. The sticky tip of the pistil, the stigma, is the receptor of pollen, the supportive stalk, the style, becomes the pathway for pollen tubes to grow from pollen grains adhering to the stigma. The relationship to the gynoecium on the receptacle is described as hypogynous, perigynous, although the arrangement described above is considered typical, plant species show a wide variation in floral structure. These modifications have significance in the evolution of flowering plants and are used extensively by botanists to establish relationships among plant species, the four main parts of a flower are generally defined by their positions on the receptacle and not by their function. Many flowers lack some parts or parts may be modified into other functions and/or look like what is typically another part, in some families, like Ranunculaceae, the petals are greatly reduced and in many species the sepals are colorful and petal-like. Other flowers have modified stamens that are petal-like, the flowers of Peonies and Roses are mostly petaloid stamens
4.
Annual plant
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An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed, within one year, and then dies. Summer annuals germinate during spring or early summer and mature by autumn of the same year, winter annuals germinate during the autumn and mature during the spring or summer of the following calendar year. One seed-to-seed life cycle for an annual can occur in as little as a month in some species, oilseed rapa can go from seed-to-seed in about five weeks under a bank of fluorescent lamps. This style of growing is used in classrooms for education. Many desert annuals are therophytes, because their life cycle is only weeks. In cultivation, many plants are, or are grown as, annuals. Some perennials and biennials are grown in gardens as annuals for convenience, carrot, celery and parsley are true biennials that are usually grown as annual crops for their edible roots, petioles and leaves, respectively. Tomato, sweet potato and bell pepper are tender perennials usually grown as annuals, ornamental perennials commonly grown as annuals are impatiens, wax begonia, snapdragon, Pelargonium, coleus and petunia. Examples of true annuals include corn, wheat, rice, lettuce, peas, watermelon, beans, zinnia, summer annuals sprout, flower, produce seed, and die, during the warmer months of the year. The lawn weed crabgrass is a summer annual, winter annuals germinate in autumn or winter, live through the winter, then bloom in winter or spring. The plants grow and bloom during the season when most other plants are dormant or other annuals are in seed form waiting for warmer weather to germinate. Winter annuals die after flowering and setting seed, the seeds germinate in the autumn or winter when the soil temperature is cool. Winter annuals typically grow low to the ground, where they are sheltered from the coldest nights by snow cover. Some common winter annuals include henbit, deadnettle, chickweed, ironically, the property that they prevent the soil from drying out can also be problematic for commercial agriculture. In 2008, it was discovered that the inactivation of only two genes in one species of annual plant leads to the conversion into a perennial plant, researchers deactivated the SOC1 and FUL genes in Arabidopsis thaliana, which control flowering time. This switch established phenotypes common in plants, such as wood formation
5.
Mulch
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A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of an area of soil. It may be permanent or temporary and it may be applied to bare soil, or around existing plants. Mulches of manure or compost will be incorporated naturally into the soil by the activity of worms, the process is used both in commercial crop production and in gardening, and when applied correctly can dramatically improve soil productivity. Many materials are used as mulches, which are used to retain moisture, regulate soil temperature, suppress weed growth. They are applied to the surface, around trees, paths, flower beds, to prevent soil erosion on slopes. Mulch layers are two inches or more deep when applied. They are applied at times of the year depending on the purpose. Towards the beginning of the growing season mulches serve initially to warm the soil by helping it retain heat which is lost during the night and this allows early seeding and transplanting of certain crops, and encourages faster growth. As the season progresses, mulch stabilizes the temperature and moisture. The effect of mulch upon soil moisture content is complex, Mulch forms a layer between the soil and the atmosphere which prevents sunlight from reaching the soil surface, thus reducing evaporation. However, mulch can prevent water from reaching the soil by absorbing or blocking water from light rains. As it decays and enriches the soils, I add more, plastic mulch used in large-scale commercial production is laid down with a tractor-drawn or standalone layer of plastic mulch. This is usually part of a mechanical process, where raised beds are formed, plastic is rolled out on top. Drip irrigation is required, with drip tape laid under the plastic. Materials used as mulches vary and depend on a number of factors, many of these materials also act as a direct composting system, such as the mulched clippings of a mulching lawn mower, or other organics applied as sheet composting. Compost, fully composted materials are used to avoid possible phytotoxicity problems, materials that are free of seeds are ideally used, to prevent weeds being introduced by the mulch. Old carpet, makes a free, readily available mulch, Rubber mulch, made from recycled tire rubber. Plastic mulch, crops grow through slits or holes in plastic sheeting
6.
Companion planting
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Companion planting is a form of polyculture. Companion planting is used by farmers and gardeners in both industrialized and developing countries for many reasons, many of the modern principles of companion planting were present many centuries ago in cottage gardens in England and forest gardens in Asia, and thousands of years ago in Mesoamerica. In China, mosquito ferns have been used for at least a thousand years as companion plants for rice crops and they host a cyanobacterium that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere, and they block light from plants that would compete with the rice. Companion planting was practiced in various forms by the peoples of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans. These peoples domesticated squash 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, then maize, then common beans, the cornstalk served as a trellis for the beans to climb, and the beans fixed nitrogen, benefitting the maize. Companion planting was promoted in the 1970s as part of the organic gardening movement. It was encouraged for pragmatic reasons, such as natural trellising and it is also a technique frequently used in permaculture, together with mulching, polyculture, and changing of crops. This practice is called trap cropping, the smell of the foliage of marigolds is claimed to deter aphids from feeding on neighbouring crops. Marigolds with simple flowers also attract nectar-feeding adult hoverflies, the larvae of which are predators of aphids, various legume crops benefit from being commingled with a grassy nurse crop. For example, common vetch or hairy vetch is planted together with rye or winter wheat to make a cover crop or green manure. The terms undersowing and overseeding both involve intercropping as a type of companion planting, undersowing conveys the idea of sowing the second crop among the young plants of the first crop. A connotation of understory growth is conveyed, albeit exaggerated, overseeding conveys the idea of broadcasting the seeds of the second crop over the existing first crop. This is analogous to overseeding a lawn to improve the mix of grasses present, there are a number of systems and ideas using companion planting. Organic gardening may make use of companion planting, since many synthetic means of fertilizing, weed reduction, the host-plant finding process occurs in phases, The first phase is stimulation by odours characteristic to the host-plant. This induces the insect to try to land on the plant it seeks, but insects avoid landing on brown soil. So if only the host-plant is present, the insects will quasi-systematically find it by simply landing on the only green thing around, when it does an inappropriate landing, it flies off to any other nearby patch of green. It eventually leaves the area if there are too many inappropriate landings, the second phase of host-plant finding is for the insect to make short flights from leaf to leaf to assess the plants overall suitability. The number of leaf-to-leaf flights varies according to the insect species, the insect must accumulate sufficient stimuli from the host-plant to lay eggs, so it must make a certain number of consecutive appropriate landings
7.
Herbaceous border
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A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants arranged closely together, usually to create a dramatic effect through colour, shape or large scale. The term herbaceous border is mostly in use in the United Kingdom, in North America, the term perennial border is normally used. Herbaceous borders as they are today were first popularly used in gardens in the Victorian era. Hybridization and new imported plant species revolutionized the form of British gardens in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, the works of Gertrude Jekyll, a British 20th-century garden designer and prolific writer, maintaining the herbaceous border is work-intensive, as the perennials had to be dug up every 3-4 years and divided to keep the bed clean-looking and prevent overgrowth of the plants. In World War I this type of border became less popular in Britain as there was a shortage of labour to keep the gardens maintained, however, there are still some celebrated examples in British gardens. The worlds longest herbaceous border at 215-metres, is according to the Guinness Book of Records at Dirleton Castle, East Lothian, Scotland
8.
Shrub
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A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized woody plant. It is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, plants of many species may grow either into shrubs or trees, depending on their growing conditions. Small, low shrubs, generally less than 2 m tall, such as lavender, periwinkle, an area of cultivated shrubs in a park or a garden is known as a shrubbery. When clipped as topiary, suitable species or varieties of shrubs develop dense foliage, many shrubs respond well to renewal pruning, in which hard cutting back to a stool results in long new stems known as canes. Other shrubs respond better to selective pruning to reveal their structure, shrubs in common garden practice are generally considered broad-leaved plants, though some smaller conifers such as mountain pine and common juniper are also shrubby in structure. Species that grow into a shrubby habit may be deciduous or evergreen
