Gardeners' question time

GARDENING:You might have green fingers, but do you have a fertile mind to match? Find out with our annual Christmas gardening quiz and be in with a chance to win a €300 gardening gift voucher

IT'S TIME TOdig deep, fellow gardeners, deep into your vast stores of knowledge. It's the annual Irish TimesChristmas Gardening Quiz. If you've been following this column during the year, then you know the answers to at least 50 per cent of the questions – so you're halfway there already. The first correct entry out of the hat wins a €300 gift voucher to spend at Mr Middleton Garden Shop, at 58 Mary Street, Dublin (or you can shop online at www.mrmiddleton.com, or by the company's mail order catalogues, available from 01-8603674). Mr Middleton stocks thousands of garden products, including plants, seeds, bulbs, wildlife supplies, plant houses, tools, propagators and other garden essentials. The prize for the next three correct entries out of the hat is a year's subscription to Irish Gardenmagazine (10 issues, value €46) for you, or for a friend if you are already a subscriber.

1What do these plants have in common, seasonally speaking: I ris unguicularis; Helleborus niger; and Jasminus nudiflorum?

2"I paint toes" is an anagram of what seasonal plant?

3Name the Irish garden festival that has taken place in the Phoenix Park for the past three years, and which will be on again next June.

4What is the "Chelsea chop"?

5What unusual characteristic do these conifers have in common: larch ( Larix), swamp cypress ( Taxodium distichum) and dawn redwood ( Metasequoia glyptostroboides)?

6At what time of the year would you be likely to see the greatest concentrations of anthocyanins in tree foliage?

7With which parts of a plant are mycorrhizal fungi associated?

8Avondale House in Co Wicklow is famous for being the birthplace of Charles Stewart Parnell, but what famous tree man lived there in the previous century?

9What is the name of the white flower in the photo?

10What plant was Ted Hughes writing about here? "Every March since they have lifted again/ Out of the same bulbs, the same/ Baby-cries from the thaw,/ Ballerinas too early for music, shiverers/ In the draughty wings of the year."

11Which chilli is hotter: Jalapeño or Habanero?

12What is the name of the designer who won best show garden at this year's Chelsea Flower Show?

13What do the following plants have in common: Galanthus nivalis, Cerastium tomentosumand Symphoricarpos albus?

14Stamens and anthers are the male parts of a plant structure. True or false?

15The Sicilian monk Francisco Cupani is believed to have introduced a popular summer plant to gardens in Holland and England around the end of the 17th century. What was its name? Helpful hint: it was then known as Lathyrus distoplatyphyllus, hirsutus, mollis, magno et peramaeno flore, odoro.

16What is the name of the Co Wicklow garden, dating from 1682, that was designed in the French style by a Monsieur Bonet?

17Rearrange these seeds in order of size, smallest first: common foxglove; horse chestnut; tree peony.

18Is the plant in the picture an adenoid, an aroid, or an android?

19Which one of these rhododendron varieties is fictitious: 'Christmas Cheer', 'Jingle Bells', 'Silent Night'?

20What is the most common way of propagating radishes: by cuttings; by seed; or by air-layering?

21What is the national floral emblem of the US?

22What other country, besides the US, has this flower as its national emblem?

23Red Russian, Black Tuscan and Redbor are varieties of what vegetable?

24The botanical name of what well-known, blue-flowered Mediterranean herb comes from the Latin words for "dew" and "of the sea"?

25What is unusual about the snowdrops 'Primrose Warburg' and 'Lady Elphinstone'?

26The keeled slug is a pest to potatoes because it: a) eats the tubers; b) bores holes in the foliage; or c) leaves slimy trails all over the flowers?

27What is the name of the château in the Loire valley with the famous vegetable garden, in the picture?

28A certain DIY chain was selling mole-deterrent devices in Northern Ireland last year. Why was this inappropriate?

29What genus of plants includes these classifications: Triandrus, Tazetta and Poeticus?

30What have these plants in common: Stachys byzantina, Valerianella locusta, Chenopodium albumand Raoulia eximia?

31The Cherokee rose, Rosa laevigata, is from what country?

32Why do gardeners "rogue" or "rogue out" plants?

33The varroa mite is a pest of what important garden inhabitant?

34What climbing plant with red flowers and edible pods was introduced to Europe more than 500 years ago from South America?

35What is the name of the British garden writer, holder of a RHS Veitch medal, and often known as the "Vegetable Queen", who moved to west Cork in 2002?

36It is recommended that cherry and plum trees are pruned in early summer to avoid which disease: silver leaf; dollar spot; or money grub?

37When you add lime to ordinary garden soil you are raising the pH, true or false?

38What is the name of the grand house and garden in the photo?

39Mossery, fernery, vinery, pinery, peppery, rosary, nuttery: all denote places in the garden for growing specific kinds of plants, except one. Which is the odd man out?

40These plants are very different, but they share what common and odd characteristic: Dianella tasmanica and Billardiera longiflora?