quotations about gardens & gardening
Life is a garden forever in flower.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Entre-Acte Reveries"
For the main garden, I do not deny, but there should be some fair alleys ranged on both sides, with fruit-trees; and some pretty tufts of fruit-trees, and arbors with seats, set in some decent order; but these to be by no means set too thick; but to leave the main garden so as it be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make account, that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, or overcast days.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Gardens", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Behold the flower-garden, and reflect on the number of beauties in this little space; the art and industry of man have made it a charming scene of the finest flowers! But what would it have been without care and culture? A wild desert, full of thistles and thorns.
CHRISTOPH CHRISTIAN STURM
Reflections on the Works of God
I don't want to return to the world outside these Gardens. All I want is to notice the dew on a leaf. The holy busyness of worms in the soil.
TOR UDALL
A Thousand Paper Birds
For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
BIBLE
Galatians 6:7
For me the acrid chemical smell of Ortho Rose Dust still has the power to summon an August afternoon in my grandfather's garden. Not terribly romantic, but there it is.
MICHAEL POLLAN
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
I've had enough of gardening--I'm just about ready to throw in the trowel.
BOB PHILLIPS
Phillips Treasury of Humorous Quotations
Feed your farm before it is hungry, and weed your garden before it is foul.
ALOYSIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
As gardening has been the inclination of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it has been the common favorite of public and private men; a pleasure of the greatest, and a care of the meanest; and indeed an employment and a possession, for which no man is too high nor too low.
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
Upon the Gardens of Epicurus
Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Charles W. Peale, August 20, 1811
The garden will be beautiful, he thought. But how do the weeds feel about it? Sacrifices must be made.
STEPHEN M. IRWIN
The Dead Path
If we gardeners are aware of the balance of nature in our gardens, then a lot of our problems will solve themselves. Most pests, especially insects and small mammals, such as voles and moles, get out of control because in our pursuit of perfection, at least our idea of perfection, we destroy their natural enemies.
WINSTON HARDEGREE
Legacy
God Almighty first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back, with a hinge in it.
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
My Summer in a Garden
The gardener gives space and freedom to young plants, that they may grow and spread forth their sweet branches, and so should masters provide indulgence for the young, who, by oblation, are planted in the garden of the church, that they increase and bear fruit to God.
ST. ANSELM
attributed, Day's Collacon
Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI
Gardens also teach the necessary if un-American lesson that nature and culture can be compromised, that there might be some middle ground between the lawn and the forest--between those who would complete the conquest of the planet in the name of progress, and those who believe it's gime we abdicated our rule and left the earth in the care of its more innocent species.
MICHAEL POLLAN
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
The best way to raise a successful garden is by trowel and error.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn't necessarily expect to witness.
MICHAEL POLLAN
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
One shapes and cares for the plant tenderly and thoughtfully, working out his ideals as he would in the training and guiding of a child.
LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY
The Pruning-Book