Here march the eaters of earth, the swallowers of rain.

To-day I thinkOnly with scents, – scents dead leaves yield,And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,And the square mustard field;Odours that riseWhen the spade wounds the root of tree,Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,Rhubarb or celery;The smoke’s...

Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn’t necessarily expect to witness.

Gardening is about cheating, about persuading unlikely plants to survive in unlikely places and when that trick is well accomplished the results can be highly satisfying.

Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood...

Sometimes just to touch the ground is enough for me, even if not a single thing grows from what I plant.

Dandelions, like all things in nature are beautiful when you take the time to pay attention to them.

I’ll have to remember you think that way,” Nathan said.

He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep...

Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts.

The only truly dependable production technologies are those that are sustainable over the long term. By that very definition, they must avoid erosion, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste. Any rational food-production system will emphasize...

She was a woman with a broom or a dust-pan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You sawher cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or yousaw her setting out...

But gardening is none of that, really. Strip away the gadgets and the techniques, the books and the magazines and the soil test kits, and what you’re left with, at the end of the day,...

No one plants rosebushes for the thorns.

After Nicholas hung up the phone, he watched his mother carry buckets and garden tools across the couch grass toward a bed that would, come spring, be brightly ablaze as tropical coral with colorful arctotis,...

Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: ‘For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.’ … he…...

In the same way that the picturesque designers were always careful to include some reminder of our mortality in their gardens — a ruin, sometimes even a dead tree — the act of leaving parts...

A gardin is where you can find a whole spectrum of life, birth and death

Novels and gardens,” she says. “I like to move from plot to plot.

If every individual should plant a tree in their life time, the world will be full of trees.

The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.–The Fruit Hunters

…there’s never a garden in all the parish but what there’s endless waste in it for want o’ somebody as could use everything up. It’s what I think to myself sometimes, as there need nobody...

As I leave the gardenI take with me a renewed view,And a quiet soul.

My hands will get dirty holding your rose-like heart, because love is like gardening—it’s earthy and takes work to keep it alive.

I think if we all gardened more, they and all of the other birds that fly in the air above and light in my garden below would be better off. I know that God values...

Soap wasn’t invented until the Romans, who also invented interesting sex. (Since my editor informs me that a gardening book is not a proper venue for discussions of interesting sex, I will go into this...

Fanfare for the MakersA cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?To the small fire that never leaves the sky.To the great fire that boils the daily pot.To all the things we are not remembered by,Which...

No Temple made by mortal human hands can ever compare to the Temple made by the gods themselves. That building of wood and stone that houses us and that many believe conceals the great Secret...

My brain is divided into two butterflies, and both are in love with your rose-shaped heart. If you’ve got the garden, I’ve got my whole life.

The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and...

My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece

Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond. Grew hisself a garden the likes of none. Sprouts all growin’ comin’ up glowin’ Fruit of jewels all shinin’ in the sun. Colors of the rainbow. See the sun...

A daffodil bulb will divide and redivide endlessly. That’s why, like the peony, it is one of the few flowers you can find around abandoned farmhouses, still blooming and increasing in numbers fifty years after...

Sunflowers for Sarita is a fast-paced, high caliber romantic suspense. I couldn’t stop reading!

The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte.

He who leaves the plants in a garden to themselves will soon find to his surprise that the garden is overgrown by weeds and that even the basic character of the plants has changed. If...

However, although you might think this is the time of year to take some time off, you must never transgress one of the allotment rules: ‘Thou shan’t go on holiday in summer!

It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success…the first thrill of creation…the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the...

Many Detroiters, for example, are beginning to see urban agriculture as a real part of the solution; to grow things right where people live, where they work, and definitely need healthier food on the table....

A poor old Widow in her weedsSowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;Not too shallow, and not too deep,And down came April — drip — drip — drip.Up shone May, like gold, and soonGreen as an...

Orwell wrote easily and well about small humane pursuits, such as bird watching, gardening and cooking, and did not despise popular pleasures like pubs and vulgar seaside resorts. In many ways, his investigations into ordinary...

She soon called a halt to the work. Judy’s great success was that she stopped her helpers before they got tired.

A nuclear reactor is a proposed “solution” to “the energy problem.” But like all big-technological “solutions,” this one “solves” a single problem by causing many…A garden, on the other hand, is a solution that leads...

One of the maxims of the new field of conservation biological control is that to control insect herbivores, you must maintain populations of insect herbivores.

We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich...

We gardeners are healthy, joyous, natural creatures. We are practical, patient, optimistic. We declare our optimism every year, every season, with every act of planting.

Doesn’t matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you ANYWAY.

Water will, increasingly, be detained, stored and then recycled or infiltrated in gardens.

Many gardeners will agree that hand-weeding is not the terrible drudgery that it is often made out to be. Some people find in it a kind of soothing monotony. It leaves their minds free to...

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think...