1282 Landscape Lingo

It’s interesting how different endeavors develop their own lingo. The inside words and phrases aficionados speak to each other. Like boaters and their “ports” and “starboards” for left and right. And their “ladders” for stairs and “sheets” for ropes.
Don’t ever ask a boater to put sheets on your bed. It makes for a very uncomfortable night’s sleep in your berth.
I saw a presentation the other day on a park that was being done by a “landscape architect.” I wasn’t really sure what a landscape architect was. My experience in landscape design is limited to deciding which to pluck first, chickweed or dandelion.
I guess the difference between a landscape contractor and a landscape architect is that landscape contractors plant stuff. The landscape architect said they “installed plants.” Sounds cool, I guess, but a little insensitive to the organic versus inorganic aspects of said plants.
There’s a subtle distinction in the “is it a living thing” category between “planting” a tree and “installing” a tree. The latter sounds more like it’s a light fixture, or a muffler.
The landscape architect also talked about the soil he was installing at a particular site and the consequences when an inopportune rainfall saturated said soil before a beauty bark berm had been erected. He said what resulted was a “fine-graded muck.” Well yeah. If you’re going to have muck, it darn well better be fine-graded.
I liked the juxtaposition of such opposite terms as fine-graded and muck. Or the implication that anyone was serious enough about dirt, mud, and such-like that they would even apply some sort of grading system to it.
Especially since most of the mucking I’ve done is in horse stalls.
Fine graded muck. Those are some premium barn apples dude.
America, ya gotta love it.