Gardens

I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit. – Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

On every stem, on every leaf,… and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. – Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)

We think that diamonds are very important, gold is very important, all these minerals are very important. We call them precious minerals, but they are all forms of the soil. But that part of this mineral that is on top, like it is the skin of the earth, that is the most precious of the commons. – Wangari Maathai (1940–2011), Dirt! The Movie, 2009

From an aunt, long ago: “Death has come for me many times but finds me always in my lovely garden and leaves me there, I think, as an excuse to return.” – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

We have descended into the garden and caught three hundred slugs. How I love the mixture of the beautiful and the squalid in gardening. It makes it so lifelike. – Evelyn Underhill, Letters

Let nature be in your yard. – Greg Peterson, www.urbanfarm.org [Said during Urban Farm tour, 2014 March 22nd,

Coffee. Garden. Coffee. Does a good morning need anything else? – Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com

I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day. – F. Frankfort Moore, A Garden of Peace

Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden…. It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. – Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. – Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it. – Frank McKinney Hubbard

It pleases me to take amateur photographs of my garden, and it pleases my garden to make my photographs look professional. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Creating your own urban farm is as simple as planting your flowerbeds with edibles. – Greg Peterson, My Ordinary Extraordinary Yard: The Story of the Urban Farm, 2009