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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jian" data-source="post: 9890300" data-attributes="member: 78087">So, just for clarification and cultural comparison, I would say that in the UK, the word “garden” refers to front/rear/side areas attached to a house which aren’t for parking and are primarily decorative or for leisure purposes. It should have some plants but a paved area designed for sitting out in the summer (“patio*”) with one potted plant where you don’t park a car is still technically a garden. “Gardening” tends to refer to all work to maintain a garden, especially the plants. So mowing the lawn, planting and fertilising shrubs, watering potted plants etc all count as gardening. I would probably say that laying patio slabs, oiling a deck, paving an area, pressure washing your patio etc doesn’t count as gardening, but YMMV. Other Brits, please feel free to disagree with me here.*It’s an obscure classical joke to say that the derivation of patio is from the Latin for “I suffer” but that’s actually pasco. The Latin word patio means “I wait or am patient” as in the word patient. The equivalent word for gardening in North America seems to be “yardwork” but that seems to refer to all aspects of caring for a yard, including gardening but also caring for paving or decking. Is that correct, do we think?</blockquote>