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"To everything there is a season...a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."...Proverbs 3
The Glory of the Garden
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
"And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden...You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden."...Rudyard Kipling
God's Warrior
Who Loves a Garden
Louise Jones
Who loves a garden
Finds within his soul
Life's whole;
He hears the anthem of the soil
While ingrates toil;
And sees beyond his little sphere
The waving fronds of heaven, clear.
God's Warrior
A Gardener's Prayer
Karel Capek, The Gardener's Year, 1929
O Lord,
Grant that in some way it may rain every day, say from about midnight until three o'clock in the morning, but, you see, it must be gentle and warm so that it can soak in; grant that at the same time it would not rain on campion, alyssum, heliaanthemum, lavender, and the others which you in your infinite wisdom know are drought loving plants - I will write their names on a paper if you like - and grant that the sun may shine the whole day long, but not everywhere (not for instance, on spiraea, or on gentian, plantain lily, and rhododendron), and not to much; that there may be plenty of dew and little wind, enough worms, no plant-lice and snails, no mildew, and that once a week thin liquid manure and guano may fall from heaven.
Amen.
God's Warrior
BEYOND THE GARDEN GATE
~Author Unknown~
Step into my garden
Step in and you'll see
A measure of peace
And tranquility.
It's the scent of the blossoms
The buzz of the bees
The sweet song of birds
As they sing in the trees.
The sweet scent of roses
Their petals so new
As they glisten and sparkle
With the fresh morning dew.
Run your toes through the grass
Beneath a canopy of trees
Hear the rustle of leaves
As they blow in the breeze.
Let the beauty of springtime
Fill your soul with great peace
Take it with you and share it
With each one you meet.
God's Warrior
Garden Path
Charlotte Anselmo~
Let's stroll along a garden path
And just enjoy the day
No thoughts of worries fill our minds
We'll just wander on our way.
Forget about life's problems
You'll see that they will keep
Just walk with me a little ways
Nature's blessings we will reap.
Let's find some joy in little things
We'll talk of nothing much
Just wander down the garden path
Sweet flowers we shall touch.
We'll find a spot to sit awhile
And watch the clouds float by
We'll listen to the song of birds
And sigh a pleasant sigh.
When at last the day is over
And home now we must go
Take the memory along with you
For the days you're feeling low.
God's Warrior
The Gardener
Arthur Symons (1865-1945)
The gardener in his old brown hands
Turns over the brown earth,
As if he loves and understands
The flowers before their birth,
The fragile little childish strands
He buries in the earth.
Like pious children one by one
He sets them head by head,
And draws the clothes, when all is done,
Closely about each head,
And leaves his children to sleep on
In the one quiet bed.
There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
Nat Burton, White Cliffs of Dover (song, 1941)
THE GARDEN
Jessie Dingwall
The garden is a special place
Where peace there can be found
And on a lovely sunny day
With scent it will abound
The beauty of the trees and shrubs
Birds singing their sweet song
Blooms of flowers in colorful arrays
Will make your heart with gladness fill
At the wonder that nature can reveal
Here is a perfect place to relax or sit and read
No matter how large or small your garden be
It is the perfect place to be
For beauty is every where to be seen
In a pot or window box or growing in the ground
Put time aside to admire nature's growing power
Even if your garden is wild and overgrown
Cast your eyes over hidden treasures
That lie hiding in the shade
For me my garden is tranquility.
God's Warrior
I'm a Gardener.....
I'm a gardener and I'm OK
I sleep all night and I plant all day!
I dress in grubby clothing, and hang around with slugs.
Oh I'm happy in the garden
With dirt and plants and bugs . . .
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Regardless of your results, remember, whenever you’re in your garden and you experience that perfect bubble of satisfaction that comes from peace, energy, and joy, you’ll know that you’re a gifted gardener and will remain so for as long as you enjoy it.
So, you think you’re an expert! Well, yes, you are. You’re an expert because you have an intimate knowledge of what goes on in your garden. You know what kind of soil you have, you have the shady locations figured out, and you know which areas dry out quickly and what plants grow best there.
You grow magnificent tomatoes, amazing roses, and your zucchinis are the envy of the neighborhood — or maybe not. Sure, you may not know the Latin name for every single one of the 15,000 or so available garden plants, but your back aches just as well as that of any other EXPERT.
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I know nothing whatever of many aspects of gardening and very little of a great many more.
But I never saw a garden from which I did not learn something
and seldom met a gardener who did not, in one way or another, help me.
Russell Page
I came to love my rows, my beans,
though so many more than I wanted.
They attached me to the earth,
and so I got strength like Antaeus.
but why should I raise them?
Only Heaven knows.
Henry David Thoreau
Who has learned to garden who did not at the same time learn to be patient?
H. L. V. Fletcher
A gardener learns more in the mistakes than in the successes.
Barbara Dodge Borland
God's Warrior
The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when wind and weather and everything else are favorable, is never a master of his craft. Gardening, above all other crafts, is a matter of faith, grounded, however (if on nothing better), on his experience that somehow or other seasons go on in their right course, and bring their right results. No doubt bad seasons are a trial of his faith; it is grievous to lose the fruits of much labour by a frosty winter or a droughty summer, but, after all, frost and drought are necessities for which, in all his calculations, he must leave an ample margin; but even in the extreme cases, when the margin is past, the gardener's occupation is not gone.
Canon Ellacombe
God's Warrior
Good gardening and a quiet life seldom go hand in hand.
Christopher Lloyd
I find the love of gardening grows upon me more and more as I grow older.
Maria Edgeworth
Nature soon takes over if the gardener is absent.
Penelope Hobhouse
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.
Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), 'The Spectator'
I know why the caged bird sings.
Maya Angelou (1928 - ), Quoting a lyric by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Cranes carry this heavy mystical baggage. They're icons of fidelity and happiness. The Vietnamese believe cranes cart our souls up to heaven on their wings.
Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, The Bad Seed, 1992
God's Warrior
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
But they don't get around
Like the dandelions do."...
Slim Acres
The summer's flow'r is to the summer sweet,
other words these houses have not been converted into homes.”
Actress Helen Hayes wrote , “All through the long winter I dream of my garden. On the first warm day of spring I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth, I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.”
I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit.
Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909
Who has learned to garden who did not at the same time learn to be patient? -HLV Fletcher 1949
It occurred to me that agriculture considered as a medium does appear to have an "outside" - that is, gardening. It's true that gardening is not the revolution, nor does gardening turn every gardener into a cultural radical. True, but perhaps in the long run less interesting than the fact that gardening remains prior to and outside agriculture, and the persistence of the garden represents some kind of dialectical negativity in relation to agriculture. [. . . ]But gardening is not just critique. It has a positive side. It actually produces good food and other benefits that exist outside the complex of exchange, or at least somewhat outside. That is, gardening is "praxis". Moreover, it is an art form, an area of creativity as rich and promising as any symbolic activity, and one which can roughly but easily transpire beyond the realm of representation and mediation. It can function as an important part of "every day life" in the radical sense of that term. In short, it occurred to me that perhaps the only possible avant garde is the avant garden. - Peter Lamborn Wilson in Avant Gardening, 1999 Autonomedia
My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times of day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of, who had never taken part in the process of creation.
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1846
"I want death to find me planting my cabbages"
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
"There are many tired gardeners but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for; gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up. Thomas Jefferson said once, "Though an old man, I am but a young gardener"."
Allan Armitage
"A well planned garden
bathed in rain and sun.
A faithful laborer...
and the harvest shall come."
Nancy Simms Taylor
"Who loves a garden still
his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants,
and wholesome harvest reaps."
Amos Bronson Alcott 1868
"To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch their renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do."
Charles Dudley Warner, author, editor, publisher (1829 - 1900)
"There's little risk in becoming overly proud of one's garden because gardening by its very nature is humbling. It has a way of keeping you on your knees."...Joanne R. Barwick, in Readers Digest (1993)
"Once we become interested in the progress of the plants in our care, their development becomes a part of the rhythm of our own lives and we are refreshed by it."
Thalassa Cruso
"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust."...Gertrude Jekyll
"Kind hearts are the garden,
kind thoughts are the roots,
kind words are the blossoms,
kind deeds are the fruit."...John Ruskin
"When gardening I have one gift,
you won't find in manuals.
I know it's strange,
but I can change,
perennials into annuals.".
Unknown author
"How miraculous that growing on my own little plot of land are plants that can turn the dead soil into a hundred flavours as different as horseradish and thyme, smells ranging from stinkhorn to lavender."
John Seymour, b 1914 (English naturalist)
"If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But, they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity"
Robert Fulgham
God's Warrior
"As the bio-centric view suggests, the garden prospers when control is balanced by equal measures of humility and benevolence. A balance is struck. Control, servitude, respect, imagination, pragmatism, an ecological conscience, compliance, and a certain measure of mysticism and altruism all meld together to provide nurturance. Try to separate the various aspects into their constituent parts - grant any one of them the status of fundamental gardening definition and one soon skews the entire process. Put them back together again in the service of the two-way street called nurturance, and we express the state of grace called gardening."
~ Jim Nollman
from Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place.
The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if newborn;
There was nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air,
Which makes the passers in the city street
Congratulate each other as they meet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Just after the death of the flowers,
And before they are buried in snow,
There comes a festival season
When Nature is all aglow.
Source: Author Unknown
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer.
Helen Hunt Jackson
"When I reflect that one man, armed only with his own physical and moral resources, was able to cause this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland, I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is admirable. But when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence that it must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense respect for that old and unlearned peasant who was able to complete a work worthy of God. [A heartwarming story about the impact of one man, Elzeard Bonfire, who planted trees from 1900-1946, in the area where the Alps thrust down into Province, France.]"
~ Jean Goon from The Man Who Planted Trees.
God's Warrior
"I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural and
best-natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman; and that is, the satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and others budding: to see all his fields and gardens covered with the beauteous creatures of his own industry; and to see, like God, that all his works are good."
- Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), “Of Agriculture”, 1650
God's Warrior
A Week in the life of a Gardener's Spouse
Author unknown
She dug the plot on Monday-
The soil was rich and fine,
She forgot to thaw out dinner-
So we went out to dine...
She planted roses Tuesday-
She says they are a must,
They really are quite lovely,
But she forgot to dust...
On Wednesday it was daisies-
They opened up with the sun,
All whites and pinks and yellows-
But the laundry wasn't done...
The poppies came on Thursday-
A bright and cheery red,
I guess she really was engrossed-
She never made the bed...
It was violets on Friday-
In colors she adores,
It never bothered her at all-
All the crumbs upon the floors...
I hired a maid on Saturday-
My week is now complete,
My wife can garden all she wants-
The house will still be neat!
It's nearly lunch time Sunday-
And I cannot find the maid,
Oh no! I don't believe it!
She's out there WITH THE SPADE!!!
God's Warrior
Gardeners at War with Mother Nature. Let the Battle Begin!
Gardeners at War with Mother Nature. Let the Battle Begin!
shazbot3
* Abandon your post, and Nature will sneak in and steal you blind.
* "Defiance is what makes gardeners." Henry Mitchell
* Gardeners had better be ready to see the ugly, the deformed, the grotesque,the dying and the dead.
* I'm dirty, tired, sore, and my face is red; and, every darn weed in that garden is dead.
* "Gardening is more or less warfare against nature." James Shirley Hibberd
* Nature is very tricky, so you must be clever or you will lose.
* Observe the enemy, learn, discern Her principles of action, imitate Her, then go beyond Her.
* "One season of natural free-for-all took me from organic pacifism to biological war." Patti Hagan
* While digging, dozens of worms were sliced down - victims of friendly fire.
* Snail - Squash! Tomato Worm - Squash! Grasshopper - Squash! The Garden Trooper is at War!
* Jackrabbits! Elmer Fudd was correct - get your dogs, traps, and shotgun.
* "If you are not killing plants, you are not really stretching yourself as a gardener." J. C. Raulston
* Soaps, malathion, diazinon, baits, oils ... land mines and poison warfare!
* We hurt and destroy ourselves as we destroy them - such is the nature of the Gardening War.
* A nine foot high fence with barbs? A deer defense system.
* If dogs and cats craved raw vegetables, they would have never become pets.
* I have never met a grasshopper I didn't dislike.
* I'm an organic gardener - I use organic methods to kill the darn mooching pests.
* To the compost pile - we take no prisoners!
* Roundup the Unwanted for the Week of Dying.
* Why do we think that Owls are Wise? They eat gophers.
* "Chopped off heads fly up, bodies sliced to tiny bits; die dandelions." Paul Brown
God's Warrior
All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.- Joseph Joubert
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Thomas Jefferson
The garden is a love song, a duet between a human being and Mother Nature. Jeff Cox
Love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies.
Gertrude Jekyll
This used to be among my prayers--a piece of land not so very large, which would contain a garden, and near the house a spring of ever flowing water, and beyond these a bit of wood.
Horace
More and more I feel the need for a house and a garden.
Marie Curie
Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed.
- Lewis Gannit
I look upon the pleasure we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life.
Cicero
God almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.
Francis Bacon
One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth. Dorothy Frances Gurney
There is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp. John Steinbeck
You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry, don't worry, and stop to smell the flowers along the way.
Walter Hagen
If you have a mind at peace, and a heart that cannot harden,
Go find a door that opens wide upon a lovely garden.
- Author Unknown
Most people don't see the sun, soil, bugs, seeds, plants, moon, water, clouds, and wind the way gardeners do.
Jamie Jobb
How cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Almost any garden, if you see it at just the right moment, can be confused with paradise.
Henry Mitchell
Flowers and plants are silent presences; they nourish every sense but the ear. Mary Sarton
Flowers are our greatest silent friends.
Jim G. Brown
Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
William Shakespeare
When the sun rises, I go to work.
When the sun goes down I take my rest,
I dig the well from which I drink,
I farm the soil which yields my food,
I share creation, Kings can do no more.
- Chinese Proverb, 2500 B.C.
A garden is a link to the passing seasons.
Sheryl London
I hate to be reminded of the passage of time, and in a garden of flowers one cannot escape from it.
E. V. Lucas
Things seem to move very slowly in a garden. But nothing ever remains the same. Jamie Jobb
Every gardener knows under the cloak of winter lies a miracle--a seed waiting to sprout,
a bulb opening to light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.
Barbara Winkler
I should like to enjoy this summer flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one for me. Andre Gide
All gardening is landscape painting.
- Alexander Pope
The essence of the enjoyment of a garden is that things should look as though they like to grow in it.
Beatrix Farrand
Anywhere you live you can find room for a garden somewhere.
Jamie Jobb
No two gardens are exactly alike.
Felicity Bryan
There is a style of garden to suit every personality.
Tom Wright
All gardens are a form of autobiography.
Robert Dash
It is not possible to use to any good effect all the plants that are to be had. Gertrude Jekyll
One of the most important things a gardener does is look.
The rewards are immeasurable. Elsa Bakalar
God's Warrior
Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can't hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms.
- Buckminster Fuller
In a garden...growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter.
And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well.
Jerzy Kosinski
Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.
Thomas Fuller (1732)
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than cherries
and very frankly give them fruit for their song.
Joseph Addison
A garden is the interface between the house and the rest of civilization.
Geoffrey Charlesworth
What if you have seen it before, ten thousand times over? An apple tree in full blossom is like a message,
sent fresh from heaven to earth, of purity and beauty.
Henry Ward Beecher
Herbs are the friend of the physician and the pride of cooks.
Charlemagne
If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses,
what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?
G. K. Chesterton
A plant is like a self-made man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire,
if we only treat him his own way.
Goethe
Grass is always the most elegant, more elegant than rocks and trees,
trees are elegant and so are rocks but grass is more so.
Gertrude Stein
Wherever humans garden magnificently, there are magnificent heartbreaks.
Henry Mitchell
Plants in pots are like animals in a zoo--they're totally dependent on their keepers.
John Van de Water
Begin early. But it's never too late to start.
Emilie Barnes
Autumn arrives in the early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. Elizabeth Bowen
To lock horns with Nature, the only equipment you really need is the constitution of Paul Bunyan and the basic training of a commando.
S. J. Perelman
A country parson without some knowledge of plants
is surely as incomplete as a country parsonage without a garden.
Canon Henry Ellacombe (1895)
There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a gardener.
Karel Capek
Pruning hurts. Pruning helps you grow.
Emilie Barnes
"As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not ony because my bees love it but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language." Sir Thomas Moore
CHINESE PROVERBS...
Keep a green tree in your heart
and perhaps a singing bird will come.
~Chinese Proverb~
That the birds of worry and care
fly over your head,
this you cannot change,
but that they build nests in your hair,
this you can prevent.
~Chinese proverb~
A bird does not sing
because it has an answer;
it sings because it has a song.
~Chinese proverb~
God's Warrior
There's little risk in becoming overly proud of one's garden because by its very nature is humbling. It has a way of keeping you on your knees. JoAnn Barwick
Even the smallest landscape can offer pride of ownership not only to its inhabitants but to its neighbors. The world delights in a garden....
Creating any garden, big or small, is, in the end, all about joy.
- Julie Moir Messervy
God's Warrior
The Tree of My Life
When I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a tree,
A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to me
What a wonderful thing it seemed! with its lace-edged leaves
uncurled, And its span-long stem, that should grow to the
grandest tree in the world!
So I searched all the garden round, and out over field and hill,
But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward will.
I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and quiet vale;
I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the gale.
Then I said, "I will cover its roots with a little earth by the door,
And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a place once more."
But still I could never find it, the place for my wondrous tree,
And it waited and grew by the door, while years passed over me;
Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too tall,
And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved at all.
So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door;
Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of yore,
But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled shade,
The children's pattering feet round its knotty knees have played,
Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge there,
And the stars through its silent boughs shine gloriously fair.
Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887)
God's Warrior
My Garden
Robert Service
The world is sadly sick, they say,
And plagued by woe and pain.
But look! How looms my garden gay,
With blooms in golden reign!
With lyric music in the air,
Of joy fulfilled in song,
I can't believe that anywhere
Is hate and harm and wrong.
A paradise my garden is,
And there my day is spent;
A steep myself in sunny bliss,
Incredibly content.
Feeling that I am truly part
Of peace so rapt and still,
There's not a care within my heart . . .
How can the world be ill?
Aye, though the land be sick they say,
And named unto pain,
My garden never was so gay,
So innocent, so sane.
My roses mock at misery,
My thrushes vie in song . . .
When only beauty I can see,
How can the world be wrong?
