Garden Jargon
PLANT TERMS
BIENNIAL - a plant that takes two seasons to grow and produce flowers. Then it goes to seed and dies. Biennials only grow leaves in the first season. Hollyhocks are a good example.
ANNUAL - a plant that has a life of one summer season. These plants grow, bloom and create seed for the next season all in one short summer.
PERENNIAL - a plant that is hardy in the zone that it is planted in. Dies to the ground each fall and springs to life again in the spring.
WATER PLANT - a plant that needs to be planted in a boggy area of the garden or placed in a pond. They also may need to float on the water surface not planted in soil.
CULTIVAR - a cultivated variety of a strain of plant. The cultivar name is identified by the use of single quotations marks, such as 'Elegans'.
HABIT - describes the form of the plant, for example weeping may mean drooping branches. Other habits are creeping, spiky, upright rounded or mounded.
HERBACEOUS - a plant with soft stems rather than woody stems. Perennials are 
most often herbaceous as shrubs are woody.
HYBRID - a plant-breeding term describing the crossing of two similar specimens, usually of the same genus, to create vigorous offspring that generally have improved qualities over the parent plants. Often identified with an x in the name, such as Geraniun x Rozanne.
RHIZOME - a modified plant stem that grows horizontally beneath, or sometimes at the soil surface. A good example 
of this is the bearded iris.
SUCKER - a fast-growing shoot that grows from the roots or lowertrunk of a shrub or tree sometimes called waterspouts when they grow near the top of the tree.
VARIEGATED - leaves marked with more than one colour.
SOIL TERMS
ERICACEOUS - plants that require acid soil to survive.
HUMUS - also call organic matter, the decaying remains of once-living material. Improve the soil texture, fertility and moisture-holding capacity; compost is a form of humus.
SOIL pH - the pH scale measures whether the soil is acidic or alkaline and runs from 1 to 14, with neutral being 7. Levels below 7 are acid and above are alkaline. Plants generally prefer a slightly acid soil of pH of 6 to 6.5.
HORTICULTURAL TECHNIQUES
FORCING - speeding up a plant's growth. Or maturity, using artificial heat, cold and/or light to make the plant bloom earlier than is normal in nature.
HARDENING OFF - gradually moving seedlings or other indoor plants outside for increasingly long periods in the spring to get then acclimatized to the outdoors.
PINCHING BACK - using your thumb and forefinger or pruners to nip back the tip of a branch to promote bushier fuller growth on a young plant.
XERISCAPING - landscaping designed to withstand drought, requiring minimal or no water or no irrigation once established; comes from the Greek xeros meaning dry.
SEED STRATIFYING - seeds that require a cold period to be able to germinate. A tactic that occurs naturally in the garden during our winter.
CLIMATE AND GROWING CONDITIONS
FULL SHADE - dense shade found underneath some trees or on the north side of a building: an area that generally receives no direct sun.
FULL SUN - at least six hours of direct sun in the middle of the day.
PART SHADE - about half a day of sunshine, morning sun is usually considered part shade. May also be referred to as filtered light/sun.
HARDY - an herbaceous or woody plant that is hardy in your location has the ability to withstand normal frost and winter temperatures without the need for artificial protection.
TENDER PERENNIALS are plants that may not be hardy in your zone and are used in containers or in place of annuals. These plants may be brought indoors for the winter months.