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| Bacteria | Some are beneficial, some cause disease but generally speaking all living things need them. |
| Balled | A tree or shrub that has been lifted from open soil and the roots have been covered in an appropriate material to contain them. |
| Bark-ringing | A ring of bark is removed from the trunk of a tree that is not producing fruit to see if it shoots. |
| Bare-root plant | A plant that has not been grown in a pot or container but in open soil. |
| Bare-rootstock | Rootstock used for bench-grafting. |
| Base dressing | Fertilizer applied before planting or sowing. |
| Bastard trenching | Digging the soil over twice. |
| Beard | Irises have a beard, it is the tuft of hair usually on lower petals. |
| Bedding plants | Generally only used for a short period of time to add colour, they can be of any type. |
| Bed system | Vegetables grown in beds of about 4ft wide. |
| Bee plant | Plants that produce lots of pollen and are therefore a favourite of bees. |
| Bench grafting | As the name suggests this type of grafting is on a movable rootstock, one that has been grown in a pot or is bare rootstock. |
| Biennial | An annual completes its lifecycle in one year a biennial takes two years. It does not flower in the first year but in the second. |
| Biennial bearer | A fruit tree that lives for more than two years but only produces fruit every other year. |
| Bi-generic cross | Hybrid between two plants of differing genera. |
| Bletting | If some fruit is over-ripened it produces a very distinct flavour. |
| Blind or blindness | A shoot that fails to grow or develop and drops off. |
| Bloom | The name for a blossom or a natural powder or sheen on fruits and leaves. It can also be a fungal powdery coating. |
| Blueing | Adding chemicals or metal to the soil around a plant that you would like the flowers to turn blue. |
| Bog plant | A plant that grows in soil that is always wet. |
| Bolting | Flowers and seeds that are produced early. |
| Bonemeal | Powdered bones used as a ferrtilizer. |
| Bonzai | Trees and shrubs miniaturised by pruning and restricting the roots and branches |
| Bottom heat | As the name suggests the artificial heat comes from underneath the plant usually provided by a propagator, this stimulates seeds and cuttings to grow quickly when conditions otherwise would not permit. |
| Bract | These are leaves that are sometimes mistaken for flowers, they are usually brightly coloured. |
| Branched head | No central shoot on the tree but rather a mass of branches. |
| Brassica | A member of the cabbage family which includes cauliflowers and brussel sprouts. |
| Break | Nip out the growing tip of a plant and it will produce side (lateral) shoots. |
| Breastwood | Shoots growing forward from plants positioned up against a support. |
| Bridge graft | Repair a badly damaged plant by grafting a shoot above and below the damaged area. |
| Broadcast | Sowing seeds all over a prepared flower bed rather than in rows. |
| Broad-leaved | This is the description of a tree apart from a conifer. |
| Bud | The embryo shoot, flower or flower cluster. |
| Budding | A method of grafting using a single growth bud. Usually done with roses to give vigour to an otherwise weak variety. |
| Bud burst | All the new seasons growth of flowers or buds, after the plants dormant time. |
| Bud wood | A shoot with many buds of the variety to be bedded onto the rootstock. |
| Bulb | A rosette stem surrounded by fleshy leaves that store nutrients. |
| Bulbil | A small bulb, formed in the leaf axil. |
| Bulblet | Very small bulbs that develop below ground around the main bulb. |
| Bulb scaling | Propagation by removing and rooting seperate scales from a bulb. |
| Bush tree | A tree whose trunk is pruned of branches to a height of 2-3ft/600cms-1m and allowed to bush out around the top. |
| Bushel | Imperial measure of volume equal to1.28cu.ft. |