jeff_gillman

Chances are, though, that once we get a garden looking just right and everyone tells us how perfect it is, we'll decide we want to take it apart and try something else or turn our attention to starting a brand new border from scratch. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't really need to: It's just what we do.

It will never rain roses. When we want to have more roses, we must plant more.

It is one of the peculiarities of garden-making, the greatest of all the arts, that there are no "great" gardens made by welfare recipients …

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.

Every spring offers another chance to undo the damage done by winter and finally get the garden right.

Gardeners always delight in doing something that another gardener says can't be done.