A gardener's year, in one grid
Gardening is a hobby of patience and dirty knees, and this word search gathers its many jobs. You'll be finding the tasks — PLANTING, WATERING, WEEDING and PRUNING — the things you grow, from a SEEDLING to ripe TOMATOES, and the gardener's world, from the ALLOTMENT to a pair of muddy WELLIES.
Each puzzle pulls a fresh selection from the list, so the plot changes every time you play — gentle on Easy, and a fuller harvest once the diagonals and backwards words appear on Hard.
Jobs across the seasons
The grid covers the whole gardening year. There's the hard work — DIGGING, SOWING, PLANTING, WATERING, WEEDING, PRUNING and MULCHING with a HOE in hand — and the clever tricks, like taking CUTTINGS, REPOTTING a SEEDLING, GRAFTING, feeding with FERTILISER and training plants up a TRELLIS. Then comes the reward: ripe TOMATOES and CARROTS, fresh VEGETABLES and a cheerful SUNFLOWER, all leading to a proud HARVEST down at the ALLOTMENT in your muddy WELLIES.
Why gardening is patient science
Gardening is really hands-on science, played out in slow motion. A tiny seed needs the right soil, water and sunlight to SPROUT into a SEEDLING, photosynthesis to grow, and POLLEN carried by bees to set its fruit — so a gardener is quietly learning how living things work. Timing matters too: you SOW in spring, tend through summer, and HARVEST in autumn, following the seasons just as farmers do.
Clever gardeners can even make new plants for free. Snip a CUTTING from a healthy plant, pop it in soil or water, and it can grow its own ROOTS into a whole new plant — a kind of natural cloning. Growing your own TOMATOES, CARROTS and VEGETABLES is also a brilliant lesson in where food really comes from, and a tasty reason to eat your greens. That mix of science, healthy eating and caring for the world makes gardening a wonderfully cross-curricular topic. (For garden tools and features, try our Gardens puzzle over in Nature.)
Great for a growing topic
It's a great fit for a school garden, a 'growing things' project or a topic on where food comes from — many words are short, and Easy mode uses a small grid with no diagonals or reverse words. Play online, print a PDF pack, or use Make Your Own to build a grid from your own gardening words.
Frequently asked questions
What's in the gardening word search?
Gardening jobs and growing words — planting, weeding, pruning, harvest, seedling and more. Each puzzle uses a fresh selection.
Does it cover the whole gardener's year?
It does — jobs like PLANTING, WATERING, WEEDING and PRUNING, things you grow from a SEEDLING to ripe TOMATOES and CARROTS, plus the ALLOTMENT, FERTILISER and muddy WELLIES.
How is this different from the Gardens puzzle?
This one focuses on the hobby — the jobs and joys of growing. The Gardens puzzle in Nature focuses on garden tools and features like the trowel, pond and greenhouse.