Landscaping University

Aggregate – Formed by adding together two or more amounts; composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments.

Area - A section of space within a building, room, etc.

Bark Mulch - a plant mulch made from tree bark.

Base Material - A gravel-based substance used to support a paved surface.

Bedrock - The solid rock that lies under the surface of the ground.

Blueschist - a metamorphic rock that is formed under high pressure and low temperature and is characterized by the presence of glaucophane.

Boulder - a detached and rounded or much-worn mass of rock.

Bulk - most of something : the largest part of something; the large size of someone or something.  Loose material loaded with a tractor and dumped out of a truck.

Cedar - a very tall evergreen tree; the hard, reddish, and pleasant-smelling wood of a cedar.  Cedar mulch repels bugs and is slower to rot.

Circumference - the perimeter of a circle.

Clay - a heavy, sticky material from the earth that is made into different shapes and that becomes hard when it is baked or dried.  A good, solid subbase.

Cobblestone - a naturally rounded stone larger than a pebble and smaller than a boulder.  Ranges from baseball size to softball size.

Compost - a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land.

Crushed Limestone - A great compactible base for any hardscape work. 

Limestone is a rock composed of calcium carbonate (CaC03). It is the rock type most commonly used to make crushed stone in the United States. It holds this position because it is widely available and suitable for a greater diversity of uses than any other type of rock. Limestone can be used to make cement. It is the primary ingredient of concrete. It is used as a base material for highways, rural roads, buildings, and railroad construction. It is used to make agricultural lime and for acid neutralization in the chemical industry. There are many products made from or using limestone that consume a small volume of material. These include poultry grit, terrazzo, glass, air pollution sorbents, mine safety dust, animal food supplements, cosmetics, dietary supplements, and blast furnace flux, among others.

http://geology.com/articles/crushed-stone/

Culvert - A drain or pipe that allows water to flow under a road or surface.

Dirt - Loose earth or soil a substance (such as mud or dust) that makes things unclean.

Edging - Something that forms an edge or border.

Erosion - The gradual destruction of something by natural forces (such as water, wind, or ice); the process by which something is eroded or worn away.

Flagstone - A hard, flat piece of stone that is used for making paths.

Forb – An herb other than grass.

Fracture -The general appearance of a freshly broken surface of a mineral.

Garden Staples – Used to keep row covers, shade nets and plastic mulches in place.

Glacier Top – A slab of bedrock from beneath a formerly existing glacier.  The top layer of rock that the glacier actually rested on.  May contain many striations and other markings caused by glacial movement.

Glaucophane - A bluish sodium-containing mineral of the amphibole group, found chiefly in schists and other metamorphic rocks.

Granite - a very hard natural igneous rock formation of visibly crystalline texture formed essentially of quartz and orthoclase or microcline and used especially for building and for monuments.

Gravel - Small pieces of rock.

Hardwood Mulch - Hardwood mulches are derived from the shredded or chipped wood of trees, including anything wood.  Hardwood mulches actually decompose faster in the landscape than cedar or bark mulch, owing to a higher cellulose content. Cellulose readily decays on exposure to air and water, and many types of fungi and bacteria favor cellulose as a food source.  The high cellulose content in hardwood mulch also makes the pieces float if it rains or floods. Hardwood mulches may also cause nitrogen deficiencies in the soil precisely due to the presence of these cellulose-eating microbes, which can cause nearby plants to starve from lack of nitrogen. Amending hardwood mulches with grass clippings or a nitrogen-rich fertilizer is one way to remedy this common problem.

http://www.gardenguides.com/130694-cedar-mulch-vs-hardwood-mulch.html

Hardscape - The nonliving or man-made fixtures of a planned outdoor area.

www.google.com

Igneous Rock - Rocks formed by the cooling and solidifying of molten materials. Igneous rocks can form beneath the Earth 's surface, or at its surface, as lava.  Granite, solid volcanic lava, and basalt are examples of igneous rock.

www.dictionary.com

Landscape Fabric - a material placed around trees, flowers or shrubs to stop weeds and promote plant growth, without chemicals. It blocks sunlight so weeds can't grow, but it's also permeable so air and moisture can nourish plants.

Limestone - a rock that is formed chiefly by accumulation of organic remains (such as shells or coral), consists mainly of calcium carbonate, is extensively used in building, and yields lime when burned.

Manure - Material that fertilizes land; especially refuse of stables and barnyards consisting of livestock excreta with or without litter.

Marble - Limestone that is more or less crystallized by metamorphism, that ranges from granular to compact in texture, that is capable of taking a high polish, and that is used especially in architecture and sculpture.

Metamorphic Rock -  Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock types, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form".  The original rock (protolith) is subjected to heat (temperatures greater than 150 to 200 °C) and pressure (1500 bars), causing profound physical and/or chemical change. The protolith may be a sedimentary rock, an igneous rock or another older metamorphic rock.

www.wikipedia.org

Mineral - A substance (such as quartz, coal, petroleum, salt, etc.) that is naturally formed under the ground, or a chemical substance (such as iron or zinc) that occurs naturally in certain foods and that is important for good health

Mulch -A material that covers soil.

Mulch Grade – Grade A: Made from only the bark of the tree.

New York Bluestone - Bluestone is defined as a dense, hard, fine-grained, quartz/feldspathic sandstone of Devonian Age, which is easily split along bedding planes. Commonly dark or slate gray, as well as blue, the term is applied to all varieties, irrespective of color. Bluestone has been used for sidewalks, curbing, countertops, patios, fireplaces and a host of other structural and decorative uses.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5025.html

Organic - of food : grown or made without the use of artificial chemicals.  Not using artificial chemicals.   Of, relating to, or obtained from living things.

Outcrop - A coming out of bedrock or of an unconsolidated deposit to the surface of the ground the part of a rock formation that appears at the surface of the ground.

Paver - A paving stone.  A person who lays pavement or paving stones.

www.google.com

Pea Gravel - A type of gravel whose individual particles are roughly the size of peas.

Perimeter - The outside edge of an area or surface the total length of the lines that form a shape.

Pi -the symbol π denoting the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter - the ratio itself; a transcendental number having a value rounded to eight decimal places of 3.14159265.

Quartzite -  A nonfoliated metamorphic rock composed almost entirely of quartz. It forms when a quartz-rich sandstone is altered by the heat, pressure, and chemical activity of metamorphism. These conditions recrystallize the sand grains and the silica cement that binds them together. The result is a network of interlocking quartz grains of incredible strength. The interlocking crystalline structure of quartzite makes it a hard, tough, durable rock. It is so tough that it breaks through the quartz grains rather than breaking along the boundaries between them. This is a characteristic that separates true quartzite from sandstone. Quartzite is usually white to gray in color. Some rock units that are stained by iron can be pink, red, or purple. Other mpurities can cause quartzite to be yellow, orange, brown, green, or blue.

http://geology.com/rocks/quartzite.shtml

Retaining Wall - A wall that is built to keep the land behind it from sliding.

River Gravel - A gravel composed of small pieces of rounded stone of various colors, usually no larger than a large coin. It is named for the effect of many years of rounding of the edges of the stones due to a flow of water over it (erosion), as often takes place in a river. River gravel is often used in outdoor settings, such as a park walkway.

Rotten Granite – or Decomposed Granite, also known as DG, is classification of rock that is derived from granite via its weathering to the point that the parent material readily fractures into smaller pieces of weaker rock. Further weathering yields material that easily crumbles into a mixtures of gravel- sized particles, that in turn may break down to produce a mixture of clay and silica sand or silt particles. Different specific granite types have differing propensities to weather, and so differing likelihoods of producing DG. It has practical uses that include its incorporation into paving and driveway materials, residential gardening materials in arid environments, as well as various types of walkways and heavy-use paths in parks. Different colors of DG are available, deriving from the natural range of granite colors from different quarry sources, and admixture of other natural and synthetic materials can extend the range of DG properties.

www.wikipedia.org

Sandstone - A sedimentary rock consisting of usually quartz sand united by some cement (such as silica or calcium carbonate).

Sedimentary Rock - Rock that has formed through the deposition and solidification of sediment, especially sediment transported by water (rivers, lakes, and oceans), ice ( glaciers ), and wind. Sedimentary rocks are often deposited in layers, and frequently contain fossils.

www.dictionary.com

Shade Tolerant Grass – Hearty, cool weather tolerant grasses that do not require full sun exposure.

Shim -  A thin, often tapered piece of material (as wood, metal, or stone) used to fill in space between things (as for support, leveling, or adjustment of fit).

Snapped Stairs – Slabs of stone that are broken to size, not sawed, for a more natural and rugged edge.

Sod - The grass and forb-covered surface of the ground.

Stone - A hard substance that comes from the ground and is used for building, carving, etc.; a small piece of rock; a piece of rock used for a particular purpose.

Straw Fabric - This common material has long been laid over compromised sites to help prevent erosion, protect plant roots, enhance moisture retention and prevent weeds. When it is combined with other materials in a web-like structure, it allows plants to peek through as they grow but stabilizes the soil to prevent seeds and baby plants from blowing or flooding away.

www.gardeningknowhow.com

Striation - A minute groove, scratch, or channel especially when one of a parallel series.

Sunny Grass Seed – Seed of grasses that are tolerant in sunny weather, do not do well in very shady areas.

Ton - 1 U.S. Ton = 2,000 Lbs.  A TON DOES NOT EQUAL A YARD.

Topsoil - Surface soil usually including the organic layer in which plants have most of their roots and which the farmer turns over in plowing.

Weathered - Seasoned by exposure to the weather; altered in color, texture, composition, or form by such exposure or by artificial means producing a similar effect.