garden

common or garden

(used before a noun; sometimes hyphenated) Standard, unexceptional, or commonly found. Primarily heard in UK. That's just your common or garden house spider; there's no need to be concerned about its bite. I'm just looking for a common-or-garden mobile phone; I don't need anything fancy.
See also: common, garden

common or garden variety

A standard, unexceptional, or commonly found kind (of thing). Primarily heard in UK. That's just your common or garden variety house spider; there's no need to be concerned about its bite.
See also: common, garden, variety

Covent Garden lady

obsolete A promiscuous woman, often a prostitute. Those Covent Garden ladies will have nowhere to turn when they're released, so they'll most likely will end up back on the streets again. Someone needs to tell young Reginald that a woman with a reputation as a Covent Garden lady has no place being brought into this celebrated family.
See also: Covent, garden, lady

Covent Garden nun

obsolete A promiscuous woman, often a prostitute. Those Covent Garden nuns will have nowhere to turn when they're released, so they'll most likely will end up back on the streets again. Someone needs to tell young Reginald that a woman with a reputation as a Covent Garden nun has no place being brought into this celebrated family.
See also: Covent, garden, nun

everything in the garden is lovely

Everything is going well. Often used in the negative. Primarily heard in UK. I doubt that everything in the garden is lovely for them—I think their happiness is just an act.
See also: everything, garden, lovely

everything in the garden is rosy

Everything is going well. Often used in the negative. I doubt that everything in the garden is rosy for them—I think their happiness is just an act.
See also: everything, garden, rosy

everything is rosy in the garden

Everything is going well. Usually used in describing negative situations. I doubt that everything is rosy in the garden for them—I think their happiness is just an act. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy, but the owners went on pretending that everything was rosy in the garden.
See also: everything, garden, rosy

garden leave

A period in which an employee does not work but continues to get paid, as before leaving or being terminated by a company. Primarily heard in UK. Brett's on garden leave right now, but I'm sure they're going to fire him.
See also: garden, leave

garden tool

vulgar slang A derogatory term for a woman considered promiscuous. The term plays on the meanings of "ho" (a derogatory slang term for a prostitute or woman considered promiscuous) and "hoe" (a tool used for tilling soil). You can't go home with him—he'll think you're a garden tool!
See also: garden, tool

garden variety

A standard, unexceptional, or commonly found kind (of thing). That's just your garden variety house spider; there's no need to be concerned about its bite.
See also: garden, variety

gardening leave

A period in which an employee does not work but continues to get paid, as before leaving or being terminated by a company. Primarily heard in UK. Brett's on gardening leave right now, but I'm sure they're going to fire him.
See also: garden, leave

gardens are not made by sitting in the shade

proverb Things are accomplished through work and effort. Come on, get up out of bed! Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade! We've already poured countless hours into this product launch and still have lots of work ahead of us. But gardens are not made by sitting in the shade, right?
See also: by, garden, made, not, shade, sitting

lady garden

slang A female's genitals, pubic hair, and/or the surrounding area. I was brought up in a very conservative household, so it was a shock to me to go to beach where women would display their lady gardens in public!
See also: garden, lady

lead (one) down the garden path

To mislead or deceive one. Don't lead me down the garden path—tell me what is really going on here.
See also: down, garden, lead, path

lead (one) up the garden path

To mislead or deceive one. Don't lead me up the garden path—tell me what is really going on here.
See also: garden, lead, path, up

skunk at a garden party

Someone or something that is unwelcome or unpleasant. Running into my ex at that important networking event was like encountering a skunk at a garden party.
See also: garden, party, skunk
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

lead someone down the garden path

 and lead someone up the garden path
to deceive someone. Now, be honest with me. Don't lead me down the garden path. That cheater really led her up the garden path.
See also: down, garden, lead, path
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

garden variety

Ordinary, common, as in I don't want anything special in a VCR-the garden variety will do. This term alludes to a common plant as opposed to a specially bred hybrid. [Colloquial; 1920]
See also: garden, variety

lead down the garden path

Also, lead up the garden path. Deceive someone. For example, Bill had quite different ideas from Tom about their new investment strategy; he was leading him down the garden path . This expression presumably alludes to the garden path as an intentional detour. [Early 1900s] Also see lead on.
See also: down, garden, lead, path
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

common-or-garden

BRITISH or

garden-variety

AMERICAN
COMMON You use common-or-garden to describe something of a very ordinary kind and with no special features. These are designer rain boots — not your common-or-garden wellies. He's just a common-or-garden petty criminal. The experiment itself is garden-variety science that normally would attract little public attention. Note: These expressions were originally used to describe the most ordinary variety of a species of plant.

lead someone up the garden path

BRITISH or

lead someone down the garden path

AMERICAN
If someone leads you up the garden path, they deceive you by making you believe something which is not true. He led me up the garden path. He said the relationship with Penny was over but now he seems to be seeing her again. They led me down the garden path and made me believe there would be a job for me.
See also: garden, lead, path, someone, up
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

common or garden

of the usual or ordinary type. British informal
Common or garden was originally used to describe a plant in its most familiar domesticated form, e.g. ‘the common or garden nightshade’.
1964 Leonard Woolf Letter I certainly do not agree that the unconscious mind reveals deeper truths about someone else than plain common or garden common sense does.
See also: common, garden

everything in the garden is lovely (or rosy)

all is well. informal
Everything in the garden is lovely was an early 20th-century catchphrase, originating in a song popularized by the English music-hall artiste Marie Lloyd ( 1870–1922 ), and is used as an expression of general satisfaction and contentment.
See also: everything, garden, lovely

lead someone up the garden path

give someone misleading clues or signals. informal
The earliest (early 20th-century) examples of this phrase use just garden rather than garden path , which suggests that the original context was of someone enticing a person they wanted to seduce or flirt with out into a garden. A North American variant of the phrase is lead someone down the garden path .
See also: garden, lead, path, someone, up
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

ˌcommon or ˈgarden

(British English) (American English ˈgarden-variety) (informal) ordinary; not unusual: ...a pet shop full of snakes and spiders, and not a common or garden rabbit or hamster in sight!
See also: common, garden

everything in the garden is ˈlovely/ˈrosy

(British English, saying, often ironic) everything is satisfactory, is going well, or could not be better: She pretends that everything in the garden is rosy, but I’ve heard that she’s heavily in debt.
See also: everything, garden, lovely, rosy

lead somebody up the garden ˈpath

(informal) cause somebody to believe something that is not true; deceive somebody: I think you’re just leading us up the garden path — now, come on, tell us the truth! He had led her up the garden path, telling her he wasn’t married.
See also: garden, lead, path, somebody, up
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

garden tool

n. a whore; a hoe. (Contrived word play.) She’s nothing more than a garden tool.
See also: garden, tool
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

garden path, to lead up/down the

To deceive, to trick. This expression, often put simply as “up the garden,” originated early in the twentieth century and tends to suggest a romantic or seductive enticement. Often found in popular novels of the 1930s and 1940s, it is less frequently heard today. See also primrose path.
See also: down, garden, lead, up
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer

lead down garden path

Deceive. The path to which the phrase refers meant an intentional detour, so to escort someone down it was to mislead a person who relied on your honesty.
See also: down, garden, lead, path
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • common or garden
  • common-or-garden
  • common or garden variety
  • variety
  • garden variety
  • Jane
  • average Jane
  • that feeling when
  • average Joe
  • that feel when
References in classic literature
I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was really very sorry for what he had done.
So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again.
He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all."
The Happy Prince and Other Tales
These three, their patient nurse, myself, the gardener, and the gardener's assistant, are the only people who ever go into my garden, but then neither are we ever out of it.
In the first ecstasy of having a garden all my own, and in my burning impatience to make the waste places blossom like a rose, I did one warm Sunday in last year's April during the servants' dinner hour, doubly secure from the gardener by the day and the dinner, slink out with a spade and a rake and feverishly dig a little piece of ground and break it up and sow surreptitious ipomaea, and run back very hot and guilty into the house, and get into a chair and behind a book and look languid just in time to save my reputation.
What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them!
Elizabeth and her German Garden
He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to whistle--a low soft whistle.
He come out of th' nest in th' other garden an' when first he flew over th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got friendly.
He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.
Secret Garden
The confidential Ivan opened the door and ushered in Commandant Neil O'Brien, whom he had found at last pacing the garden again.
"Ivan," said Valentin, "please go and get the Commandant's sword from the library." Then, as the servant vanished, "Lord Galloway says he saw you leaving the garden just before he found the corpse.
The Innocence Of Father Brown
On Sundays, after Phoebe had been at church,--for the girl had a church-going conscience, and would hardly have been at ease had she missed either prayer, singing, sermon, or benediction, --after church-time, therefore, there was, ordinarily, a sober little festival in the garden. In addition to Clifford, Hepzibah, and Phoebe, two guests made up the company.
And then, while the yellow richness of the declining sunshine still fell into the open space of the garden, Phoebe brought out a loaf of bread and a china bowl of currants, freshly gathered from the bushes, and crushed with sugar.
House Of Seven Gables
At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning to drop off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the island.
Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens