Christmas is coming and it’s more than just the geese getting fat unfortunately. Too many mince pies and not enough gardening going on in The3Growbags lives, but we can still try to keep our brains in trim.
Get your glasses and the kettle on in that order and settle down to this year’s The3Growbags Great Christmas Quiz.
SECTION 1 🎄
Plant ID 🇨🇽
Luckily you’ve got the most sensible sister first with the properly educational activity of Plant Identification. Can you give the common and scientific names of the following 10 plants? One mark for each part. And you get an extra pat on the back (and an extra mark) if you can also add a cultivar name for plants 1, 4, 5, 6, and 10. . I’ve had to throw in a couple of easy ones first to give Caroline a chance …
1.
I told you some of them would be easy, but can you give the scientific name and cultivar name of this very common annual?
2.
Another very recognisable character, but do you know which one it is?
3.
An impressive annual, but one that comes with a bit of a health warning as its seeds can be processed to make a deadly poison.
4.
A statuesque prairie plant and an absolute magnet for bees.
5.
Elaine and Caroline refuse to grow this tall beauty because of its wandering rootstock, but I forgive everything just to see its beautiful palmate leaves and soft apricot flower plumes.
6.
A glorious scent is the clue to this evergreen climber. Usually with white flowers, this is a cream coloured cultivar, and there’s another clue!
7.
A herbaceous spring flowering relative from a genus better known for annual scented climbers.
8.
This robust herbaceous plant pops up all over my
9.
This South American shrub revelled in the heat of the past summer, and gave us a harvest of unusual sweet-tasting fruit in late autumn.
10.
My final plant is one which, rather infuriatingly, Caroline can grow better than either Elaine or I, but only because of her acid soil and damp climate in the Highlands.
SECTION 2 🎅🏼
Me now, and I’m a bit of a glutton for word puzzles. So I’m going to inflict some on you!
Everything’s moving around! 🧑🎄
Have you noticed how things keep moving around the
- BUGS, ——, ——, ——-, PEAR
2. DOVE, ——, ——-, LIME
3. TOAD, ——, ——–, ——, POND
4. BEAR, ——-, ——–, ——-, ——-, WOOD
(2 points each)
Cottage garden jumble 🎁
Oooh, I love a cottage
- no SHOCK that the HOLLY can’t disguise these tall beauties.
- have LOADS of these bright flowers and your
garden won’t be GRIM. - The
garden HAS LAID mulch on these Mexican lovelies to help them through the winter. - MERE GUITARS are not enough to serenade the prettiness of these daisies.
- Does that border need some AID? I’LL GO for these flowers with their sword-like leaves.
- SO BRUSHERS past these bushes may catch a waft of sweet perfume (this answer is two words)
- lovers of this early summer flower usually have a RABID DESIRE for more of them (another answer which is two words)
(2 points each)
Garden trivia 🌲
Got all those word puzzles done and dusted? Let’s finish off this section with some horticulture-related trivia. Do you know the answers to these :
- What is the surname of the sophisticated gentleman thief created by Maurice Leblanc for a Netflix series (a werewolf professor in Harry Potter books has the same surname)?
- R. ‘Alnwick’ is a lovely shrub rose, but in which county are the famous gardens that gave this rose its name?
- Who wrote “A
Garden is a Lovesome Thing. God wot” in the 19th century? - In what book of the bible do the lines “Consider the lilies of the field” occur?
- What is the surname of the man who has scored the most Test runs for England?
- ‘Silas Marner’ is a glorious David Austin rose, but who wrote the book?
- What is the common name of Urtica dioica?
(2 marks each)
Total for Section 2 – 36 marks
How did you do??! Click on the link below for all the answers. We asked Caroline to come up with some more brain- teasers, but sadly this is all she had to offer:
Caroline’s bit……🧝♂️
Q: Why did the tomato blush?
A: Because he saw the salad dressing!
Q: Which vegetable did Noah leave off the ark?
A: Leeks!
Q: Why can’t the flower ride his bike?
A: Because he lost his petals!
Q: What do trees drink?
A: Root Beer!
Q: What kind of flower looks like it just came back from a fight?
A: A Black-Eyed Susan!
Q: What happened to the plant in the maths class?
A: It grew square roots!
Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin pi (π)!
We hope you enjoyed all that silliness. We 3Growbags are going to treat ourselves to a couple of weeks’ holiday, drinking wine, eating Brussels sprouts and watching too much TV. Elaine will be back with a New Year Gardening Tips column on 10 January, 2026.
Can we take this opportunity to thank all of you, our fantastic readers, for your wonderful support this year, including all the very kind folk who have helped keep our boat afloat through the Donorbox. We feel hugely grateful to have built such a brilliant
PS We’ll be picking the winner of our free draw at midday. One of our subscribers will win this fabulous indoor watering can. Do check your inbox because we’ll be emailing the winner this afternoon!
Here are the answers to our Christmas Quiz
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This upright, compact shrub has huge appeal at this time of the year with gorgeous red/purple berries. Louise recommends planting it at the end of the bed – find out more about her Great Plant this Month…
The great Growbags’ amaryllis humiliation!
In October we challenged everyone to see if they could get their amaryllis bulbs to flower during Christmas week. At least ALL of us Growbags utterly failed at this – which is better than one of us succeeding and being smug . How about you? Please email us your images to thegirls@the3growbags.com
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