Great plan 👍🏻 In the meantime there is no harm in getting the Principles of Horticulture book recommended by Allotment Boy for a bit of light reading (🤣🤣) - it will be a great grounding no matter what. Brian Capon’s Botany for gardeners is also a really good read - and very useful for the Botany bit of the syllabus (which will definitely still be there in one form or another).
plus spend the summer learning the Latin names of all the plants that you grow, or see growing in others gardens. It’ll get your brain trained into thinking in Latin. There’s a little book called Plant names simplified which I found invaluable- once I knew what the Latin meant it was so much easier to remember. Eg Ilex aquifolium (holly) has leaves (foliage) that look wet (aqua). Simples 😛
My favourite translation is for 'glyptostroboides' (as in Metasequoia glyptostroboides) -it means stone carved liked a whirlpool... if you look at the cones you can see exactly why.
I also enjoyed finding out that 'altaclerensis' (such as in Ilex x altaclerensis) just means 'bred at Highclere Castle'.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
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plus spend the summer learning the Latin names of all the plants that you grow, or see growing in others gardens. It’ll get your brain trained into thinking in Latin. There’s a little book called Plant names simplified which I found invaluable- once I knew what the Latin meant it was so much easier to remember. Eg Ilex aquifolium (holly) has leaves (foliage) that look wet (aqua). Simples 😛
I also enjoyed finding out that 'altaclerensis' (such as in Ilex x altaclerensis) just means 'bred at Highclere Castle'.