Ithaca

It's Human Nature, or at least a gardener's nature (which is not quite the same thing), to want to live at least one and preferably two climatic zones warmer than where he gardens

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

And though one has begun to search for signs of spring almost since January, and to receive them, like postcards sent on a long voyage to home, it is with the greening of the grass that spring has, finally, certainly arrived.

A garden is a lovely thing
But gardens are not made
By saying "Oh how beautiful"
And sitting in the shade!

A garden is half-made when it is well planned. The best gardener is the one who does the most gardening by the winter fire.

. . . the difference between great daffodils and common ones is not so vast as one thinks in the first flush of excitement when one starts being serious about daffodils.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Agri-tourism is the last refuge of agriculture

. . . some gardens are more fantastic than others, and a very few are so fantastic that they seem to be more about fantasy than about gardening. Like a play within a play, these gardens comment on the nature of illusion, the mechanics of mesmerization, the mystery of why and how the simple act of cordoning off space and time can charge them so highly with meaning.