How often I admire the taste shown in the garden which, within the house, may be indifferent. Here is an art which is today probably more perfect than at any previous time, one which does not break with the past, while it brings a sense of comely order, and a radiant beauty, to cottage and manor alike.
A Garden, an Elaboratory, a Work-house, Improvements and Breeding, are pleasant and Profitable Diversions to the Idle and Ingenious: For here they miss Ill Company, and converse with Nature and Art; whose Variety are equally grateful and instructing; and preserve a good Constitution of Body and Mind.
William Penn (1644 - 1718)
Source: Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims, 1682
Morning is the best of all times in the garden. The sun is not yet hot. Sweet vapors rise from the earth. Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten. Birds call to one another. Bees are already at work.
Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen, Delightful industry enjoy'd at home, And Nature, in her cultivated trim Dress'd to his taste, inviting him abroad - Can he want occupation who has these?