nursery

(nûr'sə-rē, nûrs'rē)

1. A room or area in a household set apart for the use of children.
2. 1. A place for the temporary care of children in the absence of their parents.
   2. A nursery school.
3. A place where plants are grown for sale, transplanting, or experimentation.
4. A place in which something is produced, fostered, or developed.

[Middle English noricerie, probably from Old French norricerie, from norrice, nursemaid. See nurse.]

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1. A room or place set apart for small children.
2. A place where plants, shrubs, and small trees are grown, usually for transplanting elsewhere.

A place where young plants are propagated and grown until they are ready for permanent planting or for sale.

A building or part of a building constructed especially for the rearing of animals on a largely milk diet. Requires special attention to mechanical services and the maintenance of a stable external environment. Hygiene, preferably an all-in, all-out management strategy, and strict microbial isolation are important parts of the management system.

• n. pigs — the growth phase of early-weaned pigs between weaning until they enter the grow-finish building. Pigs weaned at 3 weeks of age will spend 3 weeks in hot nursery pens where the ambient temperature is initially 85° to 90°F and the subsequent 3 weeks in the cold nursery where ambient temperature is 65°F.
• n. diarrhea — enteropathogenic bacterial or viral infections in young animals.

• Outbuildings, Gardens, and Fences - nursery: building in which plants are grown, esp. for transplanting
• Rooms - nursery: baby’s room
• Infancy - nursery: infant’s room in house
• Business and Science of Agriculture - nursery: place where young plants are raised
• Practice, Tools, and Techniques - nursery: place where young trees or plants are raised

For other uses of "Nursery", see Nursery (disambiguation).

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2009)

Plants in a nursery

A nursery is a place where plants are propagated and grown to usable size. They include retail nurseries which sell to the general public, wholesale nurseries which sell only to businesses such as other nurseries and to commercial gardeners, and private nurseries which supply the needs of institutions or private estates. Some retail and wholesale nurseries sell by mail.

Although the popular image of a nursery is that of a supplier of garden plants, the range of nursery functions is far wider than that, and is of vital importance to many branches of agriculture, forestry and conservation biology. Some nurseries specialize in one phase of the process: propagation, growing out, or retail sale; or in one type of plant: e.g., groundcovers, shade plants, or rock garden plants. Some produce bulk stock, whether seedlings or grafted, of particular varieties for purposes such as fruit trees for orchards, or timber trees for forestry. Some produce stock seasonally, ready in springtime for export to colder regions where propagation could not have been started so early, or to regions where seasonal pests prevent profitable growing early in the season.

Methods

An Orchid nursery

A tree nursery using gutters to decrease growing costs

Nurseries often grow plants in a greenhouse, a building of glass or in plastic tunnels, designed to protect young plants from harsh weather (especially frost), while allowing access to light and ventilation. Modern greenhouses allow automated control of temperature, ventilation and light and semi-automated watering and feeding. Some also have fold-back roofs to allow "hardening-off" of plants without the need for manual transfer to outdoor beds.

Most nurseries remain highly labor-intensive. Although some processes have been mechanised and automated, others have not. It remains highly unlikely that all plants treated in the same way at the same time will arrive at the same condition together, so plant care requires observation, judgment and manual dexterity; selection for sale requires comparison and judgment. A UK nurseryman has estimated (in 2003) that manpower accounts for 70% of his production costs. The largest UK nurseries have moved to minimize labour costs by the use of computer controlled warehousing methods: plants are pallet allocated to a location and grown on there with little human intervention. Picking merely requires selection of a batch and manual quality control before dispatch. In other cases, a high loss rate during maturation is accepted for the reduction in detailed plant maintenance costs.

Business is highly seasonal, concentrated in spring and autumn. There is no guarantee that there will be demand for the product - this will be affected by temperature, drought, cheaper foreign competition, fashion, among other things.

Annuals are sold in trays (undivided containers with multiple plants), flats (trays with built-in cells), peat pots, or plastic pots. Perennials and woody plants are sold either in pots, bare-root or balled and burlapped and in a variety of sizes, from liners to mature trees. Balled and Burlap (B & B) trees are dug either by hand or by a loader that has a tree spade attachment on the front of the machine. Although container grown woody plants are becoming more and more popular due to the versatility, B & B is still widely used throughout the industry.

Plants may be propagated by seeds, but often desirable cultivars are propagated asexually by budding, grafting, layering, or other nursery techniques.

See also

• Pot-in-pot
• PlantNursery.IN

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - børneværelse, planteskole

idioms:

• nursery nurse    barnepige
• nursery rhyme    børnerim
• nursery school    børnehave
• nursery slopes    begynderbakke (til skiløb)

Nederlands (Dutch)
kinderkamer, kinderopvang, kleuterhuis, kwekerij, pootvijver

Français (French)
n. - (gén) crèche, garderie, nursery, chambre d'enfant

idioms:

• nursery nurse    puériculteur, (Hort) pépinière, (fig) pépinière
• nursery rhyme    comptine
• nursery school    école maternelle
• nursery slopes    (GB) piste pour débutants

Deutsch (German)
n. - Kinderzimmer, Kindertagesstätte, Baumschule, Zuchtstätte

idioms:

• nursery nurse    Kindermädchen
• nursery rhyme    Kinderreim
• nursery school    Kindergarten
• nursery slopes    Idiotenhügel

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εκτροφείο, ιχθυοτροφείο, δωμάτιο παιδιών, παιδικός σταθμός, βρεφοκομείο, φυτώριο

idioms:

• nursery nurse    παιδαγωγός
• nursery rhyme    παιδικό τραγουδάκι, παιδικό ποιηματάκι
• nursery school    νηπιαγωγείο
• nursery slopes    χιονοπλαγιά για αρχάριους

Italiano (Italian)
stanza dei bambini, asilo infantile, vivaio

idioms:

• nursery nurse    bambinaia
• nursery rhyme    cantilena
• nursery school    asilo infantile
• nursery slopes    discese per principianti

Português (Portuguese)
n. - quarto (m) de crianças, berçário (m), viveiro (m)

idioms:

• nursery nurse    ama-seca
• nursery rhyme    rima infantil
• nursery school    jardim de infância
• nursery slopes    rampas de esquiar para iniciantes

Русский (Russian)
детская, ясли, детский сад, питомник

idioms:

• nursery nurse    воспитательница
• nursery rhyme    стихи для детей
• nursery school    детский сад
• nursery slopes    пологие лыжные спуски

Español (Spanish)
n. - cuarto de los niños, guardería, criadero, vivero

idioms:

• nursery nurse    puericultor, enfermera de niños, persona a cargo de un jardín de infantes
• nursery rhyme    poesía infantil
• nursery school    escuela de párvulos, jardín de infancia, kindergarten, pre-escolar
• nursery slopes    pista para principiantes

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - barnkammare, dagis, barnparkering, plantskola, trädskola

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
托儿所, 温床, 苗圃

idioms:

• nursery nurse    托儿所保育员, 受过训练的保育员
• nursery rhyme    童谣
• nursery school    托儿所, 育幼院
• nursery slopes    供初学滑雪者练习的坡地

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 託兒所, 溫床, 苗圃

idioms:

• nursery nurse    托兒所保育員, 受過訓練的保育員
• nursery rhyme    童謠
• nursery school    託兒所, 育幼院
• nursery slopes    供初學滑雪者練習的坡地

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 육아실, 종묘장

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 子供部屋, 育児室, 保育園, 託児室, 託児所, 苗床, 養成所, 温床

idioms:

• nursery garden    苗木畑
• nursery nurse    保育所の育児婦
• nursery rhyme    童謡
• nursery school    保育園
• nursery slopes    初心者用ゲレンデ

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) بيت الحضانه, مشتل زراعي‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חדר-ילדים, פעוטון, מעון-יום, משתלה, כדורי ביליארד הנמצאים יחד‬

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