quote gardening

"When I began to dig and plant, I little knew the joy which would grow out of the soil, and descend from the skies, and gather from far-off places and times to gladden my soul."
- Candace Wheeler

quote a gardener's life

"This I think is a gardener's life. Hope renewed, failures forgotten, knowledge and action wedded, bookish plans and practical applications, winters of study, summers of work, a yearly opportunity to turn our failure into sucess."
- Adelma Grenier Simmons

quote Life

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think,
all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the
friends I want to see." 
- John Burroughs

quote

"We didn't inherit the earth from our parents. We're borrowing it from our children." - Chief Seattle (1788-1866) Suquamish/Duwamish Chief

quote flowers

'Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

- William Wordsworth

quote flowers

"I think the reason that Grandma's garden is so well remembered is that children were allowed to pick as many flowers as they needed, for there was nothing rare or choice in the flower beds: petunias, four o'clocks, roses - the more they were picked, the better they bloomed."
- Elizabeth Lawrence

quote garden

'My garden is a veritable album, and as I wander over our place I find many a dear friend or happy hour commemorated in it."
- Mrs. Theodore Thomas

quote violets

"I come, I come! ye have called me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my steps o'er the wakening eart,
By the winds that tell of the violets' birth..."
- Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Quoted by Edith Holden in The Country Diary Birthday Book

quote primroses violets

"Long as there's a sun that sets
Primroses will have their glory
Long as there are violets
They will have a place in story..."
- William Wordsworth

quote violets

"As violets recluse and sweet,
Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare;
Still sunward gazing from a lowly seat,
Still sweetening wintry air."
- Christina Rossetti

quote spring

"And the Spring arose in the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

quote primrose

"Through primrose tufts in that green bower
The periwinkle trailed its wreathes
And tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."
- from Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth

poem

Portrait

It was a heartfelt game when it began -

polish and cook and sew and mend, contrive,

move betweens sink and stove, keep flower beds weeded -

all her love needed was that it was needed,

and merely living kept the blood alive.

Now an old habit leads from sink to stove,

mends and keeps clean the house that looks like home,

and waits in hunger dressed to look like love

for the calm return of those who, when they come,

remind her, this was a game, when it began.

- Judith Wright

quote daffodils

"Daffodils that come before the swallow dares,
And take the winds of March with beauty."
- William Shakespeare

"Daffy Down Dilly has come to town,
In her yellow petticoat and green gown."
- folk

quote Spring

""Now the North Wind ceases;
The warm South-west awakes.
The heavens are out in fleeces
And earth's green banner shakes."
- George Meredith

poem

Maytime Magic

by Mabel Watts

A little seed
For me to sow...
A little earth
To make it grow.

A little hole,
A little pat...
a little wish,
And that is that.

A little sun,
A little shower...
A little while,
And then - a flower!

quote Herbs

"Pounding fragrant things -- particularly garlic, basil, parsley -- is a tremendous antidote to depression. But it applies also to juniper berries, coriander seeds and the grilled fruits of the chili pepper. Pounding these things produces an alteration in one's being -- from sighing with fatigue to inhaling with pleasure. The cheering effects of herbs and alliums cannot be too often reiterated. Virgil's appetite was probably improved equally by pounding garlic as by eating it.”
- Patience Gray

quote Wisdom

"It is a great joy the day we discover that we can learn things without having to make the mistake ourselves."
- Henry Mitchell

quote Herbs

"A herb garden needs no window dressing from other brilliant flowers - herb foliage makes a varied and harmonious tapestry of leaves, and its gentle flowers are a bonus. Above all, of course, there are the scents - crushed in your fingers they linger, and as you walk by they waft towards you in a tantalizing medley."
- Rosemary Verey

quote May

"Ye that pipe and ye that play

Ye that through your hearts today

Feel the gladness of the May"

- William Shakespeare