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The garden

Even a balcony with three pots counts as a garden in Spain, and the vocabulary comes up every time a neighbour asks who waters the plants in August.

Quick answer

Tengo que cortar el césped este fin de semana.

I have to mow the lawn this weekend. Spanish says cortar el césped, literally to cut the lawn, and el césped is masculine.

The words

SpanishEnglish
el jardínthe garden
el céspedthe lawn
la plantathe plant
la florthe flower
el árbolthe tree
la macetathe plant pot
la manguerathe hose
la regaderathe watering can
la semillathe seed
la tierrathe soil
el setothe hedge
la hojathe leaf
el huertothe vegetable garden
regarto water
podarto prune

The phrases you will actually say

Tengo que cortar el césped este fin de semana.I have to mow the lawn this weekend.
¿Puedes regar las plantas mientras estoy fuera?Can you water the plants while I am away?
He plantado tomates en el huerto.I have planted tomatoes in the vegetable garden.
Las flores necesitan más sol que sombra.The flowers need more sun than shade.
Hay que podar el seto antes del verano.The hedge needs pruning before the summer.

Worth knowing

Two words look like one thing and are not. El jardín is the ornamental garden with grass and flowers, while el huerto is where you grow food; a farmed irrigated plain, as around Valencia or Murcia, is la huerta. The lawn splits by region: el césped in Spain, el pasto in much of Latin America, la grama in the Caribbean and Central America. Watch la planta, which also means the floor of a building, so la planta baja is the ground floor and has nothing to do with gardening. La tierra is soil in this context, not the planet, which takes a capital letter. Spanish gardening is shaped by water: many municipalities restrict garden watering in dry summers, and shaded courtyards with potted plants, the patio tradition of Córdoba and Seville, exist precisely because lawns are hard to keep alive.

Practice

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