In the southeastern U. S., a "yard" is a piece of cleared land where a house is erected. It surrounds the house. You can plant shrubbery around the house if you like. You can have flower-beds scattered around the yard if you like. If you watch movies and TV, you can see that that definition of a yard is pretty common all over the U. S., from Florida to Alaska.

In urban areas the yards are often pretty small and cluttered although it mostly depends on the size of the plot of land that you purchased. You hear the term "postage stamp" yards, where the yard isn't much bigger than the house. In rural areas the yard can be acres in extent, depending on how much land one owns and how big the owner wants to make the yard. There are no set rules although if you live in an urban area, there may be local laws limiting what you can and cannot do.

If you like, you can plant a vegetable garden in a corner of the yard, away from the house. But this seems to be cultural. You hear of both flower gardens and vegetable gardens. Some people grow vegetables in flower pots next to their house. You hear of "square-foot" gardens, where people grow their vegetables in raised beds set in frames. You can grow your garden in greenhouses or hot houses, depending on climatic conditions. There just are no set rules.

For me, in particular, I live in a rural area and I have a fairly large yard with trees and flower-beds surrounding my house. I don't have a vegetable garden but that is only because I don't want to put forth the effort to cultivate one. Living in a rural area has advantages and disadvantages, and for me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. One of the advantages is more privacy. One of the disadvantages is the unavailability of high-speed internet and cable TV. I have to depend on satellite. It's a personal call although I realize that very often people don't have that opportunity. I consider myself blessed that I do.

As for ĉielo, German uses the same word for both as well, and I've never come across a misunderstanding because of this.

Yard seems to be related to the Scandinavian word gård and the German word Garten, whereas the Germans seem to use Hof for what the Brits call yard. That is like ‘barnyard’. Esperanto has the words ‘korto’ and ‘ĝardeno’. Most Americans who live in houses have a lawn (herbejo, gazono) in front of the house and sometimes on the sides and in the back. We have a ‘filikejo’ since we 1) want to save water; 2) don’t want to pollute the world with more pesticides; and 3) are too lazy to “cut the lawn”. I guess in English you would say that we have a ‘fern garden’ in front of our house or we could make up a word parallel to ‘vineyard’ (pronounced /vınjɚd/ hereabouts) and call it a ‘fernyard’. But note how easy it is to create a new word in Esperanto whereas English might be a bit unclear and in need of explanation. Yard, heh? Dig it!

robbkvasnak:But note how easy it is to create a new word in Esperanto whereas English might be a bit unclear and in need of explanation.

I found it every time very amuzing to paraphrase some issues I don't know the proper word for. More better thats the most ultimative way to enlarge your vocabulary of some foreign language means to learn new words 'emotional' in context. But for sure on my side that will need some internal wish and mental power to be innovative flexible and my counterpart need to be patient and open-minded.

robbkvasnak: We have a ‘filikejo’ since we 1) want to save water; 2) don’t want to pollute the world with more pesticides; and 3) are too lazy to “cut the lawn”.

Following that logic, we had a herbaĉejo growing up