Anne Raver

I couldn't get that voice out of my head: "Your leeks are late. Your leeks are late. You haven't even ordered your potatoes yet."

Don't wear perfume in the garden unless you want to be pollinated by bees.

To me, the garden is a doorway to other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds. The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries.

Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let's stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another.

A garden is like the self. It has so many layers and winding paths, real or imagined, that it can never be known, completely, even by the most intimate of friends.