Using 'plot' vs. 'garden'?

**ButternutSquash** · 12-07-2014, 04:21 PM

A yard is an industrial area. The area of land behind a house is a garden. The area of land on which the house is situated including the garden is known as the plot. A house on a 1/4 acre plot is either very big, or has a good sized garden. I've only ever heard the term allotment, not allotment garden. This is UK usage anyway. Or at least my understanding of it.

I like your signature. I spent today moving a compost bin, and contents, to the end of the garden, edging a veg bed, edging the lawn around a tree, edging the lawn around new beds, and getting a replacement fence post. And I forgot to water the tomatoes, so I'd better do that now ..

**mothhawk** · 12-07-2014, 04:51 PM

I think the terms are fairly interchangeable and usage depends on where you are from. I know "back yard" is used in the States to denote land at the back of the house, but here in the UK if you say "back yard" generally it will be purely a small paved/hard surfaced area with no soil beds. The usage is somewhat outdated now. "Garden" refers to land around the house that can be or is cultivated to some extent (including lawns).

"Plot", now, is very interchangeable, but I guess as a sweeping generalisation, what most people mean when they are talking gardening and say "my plot" or "the plot", is land that they cultivate. It could be the garden, it could be an allotment. They could be referring purely to the part that grows veg, as opposed to flowers or lawn, or to the whole area. Allotments are often called "lotties" as you will probably have noticed in posts, as well as or instead of "plots".

It would be interesting to see what the different usage is from north to south in the UK

Isn't English a grand language?

**Bren In Pots** · 12-07-2014, 05:04 PM

We call the paved area just outside the back door 'the yard' that's because before we moved here (30 year ago now ) we had a house with just a yard. visitors to our house call it the patio

Then further down we have the lawn and beyond that are the veg beds.

**Scarlet** · 12-07-2014, 05:07 PM

I have an acre of garden, my veg area is called my plot. The area with fruit trees is "my orchard". The garden is the garden and the hard standing where our cars are parked and my herb pots are kept is "the yard" the cobbled area outside my front door is the "court yard"

**mothhawk** · 12-07-2014, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by Scarlet View Post

I have an acre of garden, my veg area is called my plot. The area with fruit trees is "my orchard". The garden is the garden and the hard standing where our cars are parked and my herb pots are kept is "the yard" the cobbled area outside my front door is the "court yard"

There you go, Dan. Like I said, isn't English a grand language?

**Jeanied** · 12-07-2014, 05:51 PM

I have a front garden, a back garden - both tiny - and an allotment which usually gets referred to as the lottie. I have a sneaky feeling I lost the plot some years ago.

**veggiechicken** · 12-07-2014, 06:29 PM

I have a front garden and a "back" garden (though I never call it the "back" garden - just the garden).
My veggies and fruit are grown in the garden and the house and garden are in a half acre plot of land.
When I had an allotment, (a piece of land for growing veg that I rented from the local Council) I called it the "allotment" - not the plot or the lottie.
In our family "ears" are called "lotties".

**Nicos** · 12-07-2014, 08:59 PM

And to confuse things further DWS...here in France we have potagers where fruit and veg are grown together with flowers in a pretty layout with paths .
In the UK they are more commonly called a kitchen garden

**bearded bloke** · 12-07-2014, 10:06 PM

After gathering your crops & cooking them,do you eat them in the dining room or the banqueting hall

**hamamelis** · 12-07-2014, 11:23 PM

The term "Allotment Garden" is the official name on my contract with the council, but I've never heard it in the wild.

**Feral007** · 13-07-2014, 04:04 AM

I'm with DWSmith, a plot is usually found in a cemetery here.

On the farm we have our House Yard, which is the fencing around the house including the front/back and both side/gardens. There's the Fruit and Nut Food Forest starting up outside the House Yard, near the Hay Shed.

Normally here in suburbia, you buy a Block of Land to build your house on. And a house is a house, whether it is detached, semi-detached, one or two storey. You'll find Blocks of Flats, and Apartment Buildings.
They do come up with some very Posh names for the more expensive Flats and Apartments. Which always gives us a laugh.
Bit like roads. You can have Tollways, which are often now Freeways. Then there's Motorways, which are usually tolled. And they are buiilding a new road bypass system in the nations capital city - it of course is not a roadway/tollway/nor a motorway......it is a Parkway. Some roads in Sydney should be termed a Parkway - because in peak hours it often looks like a long carpark.

**Small pumpkin** · 13-07-2014, 06:30 AM

Originally posted by DWSmith View Post

Do they have the same meaning?

I'm wondering if one usually refers to their allotment garden as a plot and their whole yard at home as a garden. Is a home garden plot a garden or a plot or does it matter?

Thanks,
Dan

It really really doesn't matter

**bearded bloke** · 13-07-2014, 08:49 AM

Is it to do with .. Soil Density ?

I often hear people talking about growing challenges/problems in their particular soil & how while some crops are dire,something specific does really well,these conversations always seem to end with one or other saying ....

The Plot Thickens

*grabs refreshments & runs towards Norty Step >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

**Nicos** · 13-07-2014, 08:57 AM

^^^^ tsk!
I wondered when someone would come up with that phrase....it had to be you didn't it!

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