hepaticas

I am instinctively suspicious of any garden writer (or gardener) who is insufficiently fretful.

But a garden is somewhat exalted above ordinary notions of correctness. A garden is more than a matter of the right fish fork, as it were.

If tending a garden has meant coming under the yoke of the seasons, my capitulation is complete; it is a willed captivity, however, perhaps like any other kind of passion.

But along the way we really do learn that marigolds gain enormously in impact when used as sparingly as ultimatums.

I don't mean to complain about my own garden. It serves me and satisfies me quite well, except at the moments when I get into despair over it: very frequent moments, when I long to have some other sort of garden, quite different; a garden in Spain, a garden in Italy, a garden in Provence, a garden in Scotland.