Sweet Disorder

It isn't that I don't like sweet disorder but it has to be
judiciously arranged.

Vita Sackville West

Obey to Command

Nature, to be commanded must be obeyed.

Francis Bacon

Knowledge Is Like A Garden...

Knowledge is like a garden; if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.

African proverb

The Garden Fair

How fair is a garden amid toils and
passions of existence.

Benjamin Disraeli

Stretching Things

Imagination cannot stretch much further than a giraffe.

No End In Site?

There is no "The End" to be written, neither can you, like an architect, engrave in stone the day the garden was finished; a painter can frame his picture; a composer notate his coda, but a garden is always on the move.

Mirabel Osler

Farmer > Emperor

I would rather be on my farm than an emperor of the world.

George Washington

First Things First

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.

Samuel Johnson

Are Bugs Meek?

Bugs are not going to inherit the earth. They own it now. So we might as well make peace with them.

Eisner

Detail=Time

Attention to detail and time have an unhealthy relationship - you'll seldom see attention to detail without time.

Grafting the New

Only a fool will build in defiance of the past. What is new and significant always must be grafted to old roots.

Bela Bartok

Be...er kind to Bees

When the bee comes to your house let her have beer. You may want to visit the bee's house one day.

Congolese proverb

Texture erotica

Texture is a language. It is braille for the brain. A fondling of the eyes.

How To Best Water Your Garden

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration.

Lou Erickson

extracted by Blossom

Mediocrity's antidote

The petals of a flower are protection against mediocrity

Gardeners Intentions

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise.

Michael P. Garafalo

Garden Euphemisms

Gardens always mean something else, man absolutely uses one thing to say another.

Robert Harbison

What is a Weed?

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

Anonymous

Why Hurry?

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

What is the Best Fertilizer?

The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow

Anonymous

Explaining Miracles

Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.

Robert Brault

Arrive at the New Way

One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.

Henry Miller

Study The Ground

There is no such thing as a style fitted for every situation; only one who knows and studies the ground well, will ever make the best of a garden, and any "style" may be right where the site fits it.

William Robinson

Digging for God

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

George Bernard Shaw

Stir The Blood

Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the blood of man.

Daniel Hudson Burnham

Fragrant Hands

Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them.

Don't Be Sad

Don't be sad that its over, be glad that it happened.

Dr. Seuss

Are You Mad With Joy?

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

Iris Murdoch

The Voice of the Sun

Said the Sunflower to the Sun: "Where is your stem?"

Herman Charles Bosman

Look Deep

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Albert Einstein

Making Gardens

Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.

Rudyard Kipling

Enclosure

The word garden comes from the same root as the word geard, which meant an enclosure or garden.

Obey the Givens

Ninety percent of all "Designs" are "Givens" - Aspects that are determined by the nature of the site, the materials, and the climate - to name just a few.
"Given" aspects of design must simply be obeyed - water does not flow uphill, rocks fall over when not positioned properly, plants die when they are not planted in the right place.

Garden Art of War

A garden can be a retreat.
Or it can be a strategic withdrawal.
It might equally be an attack.

Study to Dig

Dirty fingernails are not the only requirement for growing plants. One must be as willing to study as so dig, for a knowledge of plants is acquired as much from books as from experience

Elizabeth Lawrence

Flower or Weed

The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgement

Wary but not Relinquished

It is right to be wary of the power of colour, but that is no reason to relinquish it.

Simplify

Our life is frittered away by details ... Simplify, simplify!

Henry David Thoreau

The Value of Contrast and Harmony

The value of the plant in the composition, like the value of colour in paintings, is always relative.
The plant is made valuable by the contrast or harmony created by its relation to the other plants.

Roberto Burle Marx

Politics of Gardening

Every garden is a political act.
Every plant is a political prisoner.

Mitate

Mitate (Mee,tah,teh), freely translated as "Seeing Anew" is the process of finding a new use for an old object.

Genius

To build to plant whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the Terras or to sink the Grot,
In all let Nature never be forgot.
Consult the Genius of the place in all.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Storytelling

Gardeners are storytellers. They should cultivate their plots.

Keep No Record

The Landscape Architect, or the Architect, or the Gardener, should make his plan as an instruction that will grow into place.
After that he takes his plan and throws it into a fire place, and keeps no record of it, because the next garden he makes must be completely different, because the garden is very, very private and belongs to an individual.

Louis I Khan (1901-1974) American Architect

Learning

The first and foremost principle is to learn from nature, do not copy nature, interpret it.

What Ought To Be

What is, should be the guide as to what ought to be.

Collecting

The most important object of a collection is the next one

Phillip Blom

Nature Corrects

I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower border; she thinks it is a meadow lacking in grass, and tries to correct the error

Sara Stein

Simplicity

Simplicity allows the senses to rest from stimulation

Gunilla Norris

Noteworthy Gardeners

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied

Vita Sackville West

Details

God is in the details

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Nature's Secret

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Patience

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Lao-Tzu

Earth Laughs

The earth laughs in flowers...

Magnificent World

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself

Henry Miller

The Woods

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep

Robert Frost

New Eyes

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes

Marcel Proust