Underplant

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A plant that has been planted underneath others.
Verb
  1. 1
    To plant underneath. transitive

    "Such small, exquisite enclosures as the Sundial Garden beside the house, planted by Mr. Howard with near-black and white perennials chosen to bloom sequentially for 10 months of the year, or the Azalea Walk, with its underplanting of bulbs and season-extending clematis, cannot take care of themselves."

  2. 2
    To plant too little of. transitive

Example

More examples

"Such small, exquisite enclosures as the Sundial Garden beside the house, planted by Mr. Howard with near-black and white perennials chosen to bloom sequentially for 10 months of the year, or the Azalea Walk, with its underplanting of bulbs and season-extending clematis, cannot take care of themselves."

Etymology

From under- + plant.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.