Rundy
…the shivery perfection that winter can bring to our gardens.
The two most mysterious aspects of clematis are, How is the word pronounced? and, What is its plural form? Once these questions are answered, growing the plants is plain sailing.
The pleasure of gardening is often measured by the amount of weeding you don't have to do.
This morning the sun and warmth have gone, a sleety rain is making it difficult to be outside, so I have made a list of the fall jobs. . . . The list that I gradually compile is long, but in order to give myself a sense of accomplishment, I include one or two jobs that I have already done.
At such times I understand that the enjoyment of looking is nothing compared with the pleasure of gardening--and that I would much rather garden than have a Garden.
It is not a bad thing for plants to express individualism. Not everyone can be a marigold.
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.
It isn’t that I don’t like sweet disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged.
Time for the weather report. It's cold out folks. Bonecrushing cold. The kind of cold which will wrench the spirit out of a young man, or forge it into steel.
Fortunately, by the thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth year or thereabouts, the gardener strikes that balance by which he has the best of all seasons. By the time one is eighty, it is said, there is no longer a tug of war in the garden with the May flowers hauling like mad against the claims of the other months. All is at last in balance and all is serene. The gardener is usually dead, of course.
At such times I understand that the enjoyment of looking is nothing compared with the pleasure of gardening--and that I would much rather garden than have a Garden.
If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.
