gardening

A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

I don't like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It's just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.

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.

As I grew steadily more comfortable in the kitchen, I found that, much like gardening, most cooking manages to be agreeably absorbing without being too demanding intellectually. It leaves plenty of mental space for daydreaming and reflection.

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!

Gardening is not trivial. If you believe that it is, closely examine why you feel that way. You may discover that this attitude has been forced upon you by mass media and the crass culture it creates and maintains. The fact is, gardening is just the opposite - it is, or should be, a central, basic expression of human life.

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

For you little gardener and lover of trees, I have only a small gift. Here is set G for Galadriel, but it may stand for garden in your tongue. In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, and catch a glimpse far off of Lórien, that you have seen only in our winter. For our spring and our summer are gone by, and they will never be seen on earth again save in memory.

Your top priority needs to be__irst and foremost__ating fresh, chemical-free produce and keeping your busy family healthy.

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!

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

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 the farmer and his wife have moved to heaven, or the other place, Boca Raton. If you dig up a clump when no one is nearby and there is no danger of being shot, you'll find that there are scores of little bulbs in each clump, the progeny of a dozen or so planted by the farmer's wife in 1942. If you take these home, separate them, and plant them in your own yard, within a couple of years, you'll have a hundred daffodils for the mere price of a trespassing fine or imprisonment or both. I had this adventure once, and I consider it one of the great cheap thrills of my gardening career. I am not advocating trespassing, especially on my property, but there is no law against having a shovel in the trunk of your car.

I rebuke societies that impart to their flowers their cold and rigid demeanour. Flowers should not stand with the stiffness of a soldier on parade but must carry themselves with the relaxedness of a dancer, their arms outstretched above a shaggy mane. Life reveals few sights as distressing as the look of flowers standing mournfully at attention unstirred by the kisses of a million bees. This infection of uncomely reserve is the handiwork of sombre gardeners bred in sombre societies who will not consider their work done till their flowers exude in aspect that stiffness they esteem. They forget that God intended that we mingle with flowers and not merely admire them from afar. But there is a look in a fastidiously manicured garden that makes me keep my distance, a look that draws my eyes but scorns my touch, and that is why I condemn them.

When tended the right way, beauty multiplies.

One must also have faith to grow flowers...

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 humus of our lives.