By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course. – Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman, 1981

Gardens always mean something else, man absolutely uses one thing to say another. – Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces, 1977

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

Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac