Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything — except itself. – May Sarton, Plant Dreaming Deep, 1968

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

A garden was the primitive prison, till man with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it. – Charles Lamb, 1830

I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error. – Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988