The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before
—Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) English Gardener, Author, Poet
Bloom where you are planted.
—Mary Engelbreit (b.1952) American Graphic Artist
Unemployment is capitalism’s way of getting you to plant a garden.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Plant carrots in January and you’ll never have to eat carrots.
—Indian Proverb
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made By singing:—“Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
It is not enough for a gardener to love flowers; he must also hate weeds
—Anonymous
The garden is the poor man’s apothecary.
—Indian Proverb
Nature abhors a garden
—Michael Pollan (b.1955) American Food Writer, Campaigner
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
When I go into my garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
—Greek Proverb
The best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.
—Unknown
I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.
—Frances Hodgson Burnett (1879–1958) British Novelist, Playwright
All gardeners know better than other gardeners.
—Chinese Proverb
Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
True friendship is like a rose: we don’t realize its beauty until it fades.
—Evelyn Loeb
He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul.
—Celia Thaxter (1835–94) American Poet, Writer
I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet, Essayist
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.
—Unknown
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still slowly ripen a fruit tree, as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian Astronomer, Physicist, Mathematician
Laying out grounds may be considered a liberal art, in some sort like poetry and painting
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps, Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvest reaps.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) American Teacher, Writer, Philosopher
God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
—Douglas Malloch (1877–1938) American Poet, Short-story Writer