garden

RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that "Stone walls do not a prison make," but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.

Democracy is fine in politics. It should stay there, and we need more of it. But its political virture is no reason to practice it in the garden.

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. You are always living three, or indeed six, months hence. I believe that people entirely devoid of imagination never can be really good gardeners. To be content with the present, and not striving about the future, is fatal.

The grape Hyacinth is the favorite spring flower of my garden - but no! I though a minute ago the Scilla was! and what place has the Violet? the Flower de Luce? I cannot decide, but this I know - it is some blue flower.

The first gatherings of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby - how could anything so beautiful be mine. And this emotion of wonder filled me for each vegetable as it was gathered every year. There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown.

Exclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. Share the botanical bliss of gardeners through the ages, who have cultivated philosophies to apply to their own - and our own - lives: Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.