Renees_Garden

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.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

I could not do without a Syringa [mockorange], for the sake of Cowper's Line.

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

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.

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.

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.

. . . We gardeners needn't have a siege mentality toward frost. It's not a villain, holding us hostage in some pitifully short growing season. Jack Frost is simply one more character in this dazzling, sometimes perplexing, and wonderfully rewarding practice we call gardening.