Acquisitions

Not everyone has the personality to have a public farm.

Improbability is not a quality we value in landscapes.

I am very fond of the Spring-flowering colchicums, but unfortunately slugs are also, and those greedy gastropods and I have a race for who can see the flower-buds first. If I win I go out after dark with an acetylene lamp and a hatpin and spear the little army of slugs making for a tea party at the sign of the Colchicum.

Low maintenance is for homeowners, not gardeners!

Garden math has always seemed a bit like using MapQuest to find Nirvana.

Getting rid of poor plants is as important as seeking out the best.

Dreams, not desperation, drive people forward to plant gardens.

…the shivery perfection that winter can bring to our gardens.

Winter is the icicle in the soul of the gardener.

Gardening may well be one of the world's most important fantasies.

In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do, but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.

Gardening may be the most exasperating occupation under the sun, but it gives as much as it gets--no more no less. Life in a garden is one long war with the powers of Evil, but the victory is worth winning. Maddening catastrophes are followed by spectacular triumphs. One minute you are flat on your face, and the next you are soaring on the wings of the morning.

It should be said, though without any intention of adding to the world’s already adequate store of guilt, that the average gardener is surprisingly lazy and, not to split hairs about it, pig-headed.