Grow where youÂre planted.

San

"Sure, and may there be a road before you and it bordered with roses, the likes of which have ne'er been smelt or seen before, for the warm fine color and the great sweetness that is on them.

- An Irish Blessing.

Got this from a rose catalog years ago, don't know where they got it but it's lovely.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." Marcus Tullius Cicero (He died 43 B.C.)

A friend got me a pillow that says:
Gardeners have all the good dirt. ;)

Never walk so fast that you cannot stop and smell the flowers and never stand still so long that you get stung on the rear by a bee!

"Make Hay while the sun shines."

"Don't bend over in the garden, Grandma, them 'taters got eyes!"

"All bliss
Consists in this:
To do as Adam did."

--Thomas Traherne (17th c.)

"If Eve had had a spade and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business about the apple"
Elizabeth van Arnium

A Flower is a Leaf Gone Mad With Love....

Saw this on a bumper sticker today:

Live like you'll die tomorrow BUT
garden like you'll live forever!

For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm.
- Edwin Way Teale

I like this. I read it on some website.
"If I'd wanted and easy-care garden, I would have planted weeds"

My dad's favourite...You are closer to God in a flower garden than in all the churches on earth.

These are all wonderful! One of my favorites is from Thomas Jefferson:
"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."

"The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies."
Gertrude Jekyll

I like .......A weed is a free spirited flower

I like:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
Tomorrow will be dying

-Robert Herrick

...and I quote this old saying regarding perennials and shrubs all the time:

"The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap."

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please;
Those Edens can't be found.
The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.
We're neither pure nor wise nor good;
We'll do the best we know;
We'll build our house, and chop our wood,
And make our garden grow.
-Richard Wilbur

A little seed lay in the ground, and soon began to sprout.
"Now which of the flowers all around", it mused, "shall I turn out?"
"The lily's face is fair & proud, but just a trifle cold.
"The rose, I think, is rather loud, & then, it's fashion-old."
& so it mused the livelong day, this supercilious seed,
til it emerged one day in may and found itself-
a weed!

"Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee."
-----The Old Testament, Job 12:8

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh;
but the earth abideth forever."
-----The Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 1:4

"As you sow, so will you reap."
-----The New Testament, Galatians 6:7

"Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade."
-----Rudyard Kipling

"When the root is deep,there is no reason to fear the wind."
----Chinese Proverb

"Let your prayers for a good crop be short,
and your hoeing be long."
-----Albanian Proverb

I just remembered something my instructor in college said when someone described potting soil as "dirt".

"Soil is what you grow plants in.
Dirt is what you wipe off your shoes before you enter the greenhouse."

Don't know if this counts as a gardening quote but I received it as an e-mail years ago and copied it, somehow it still sits near the keyboard cause I never knew what to do with it, this weekend I found a "word in stone" kit and I'm thinking about copying it into brick for a walkway:

Even that which is beautiful
can sometimes bring pain

So, to love from the heart
is to invite the rain

But to reach for the rose
you must fear not the thorn

To love from the soul
is to embrace the storm

what do you think?

wstkygirl, who has dealt with lots of rain and storms here lately

Great poem, wstkygrl! How true it is. Ditto on the rain and storms. Today is all sunshine. I'm taking the day off to enjoy it, pick strawberries and play in the garden - sort of a "mental health" day.

Wendy (in upstate New York)

This one is my personal favorite, although I cannot remember where I first read it:

The Dog is the only garden pest to be successfully domesticated."

Here's my contribution.

The Legend of the Raindrop
holds a lesson for us all
as it trembles in the heavens
wondering should it fall.
The glistening little raindrop
argues with the sky -
"I am beautiful and lovely
as I sparkle here on high."
"And hanging here I will become
part of the ranbow's hue;
and I'll shimmer like a diamond
for all the world to view."
But the heavens asked the raindrop,
"Why do you hesitate to go?
For you'll be far more beautiful
if you fall to earth below."
"For you will sink in the soil,
and be lost awhile from sight.
but when you reappear on earth
You'll be greeted with delight."
"For you will be the raindrop
that quenched the thirsty ground
and helped the lovely flowers
to blossom all around."
"And in your resurrection
You'll appear in queenly clothes,
in the beauty of the sky
and the fragrance of the rose."
"For nothing's ever lost,
nothing's ever gone for good,
but renews itself upon the earth
as God thought that it should."
"So trust God's mighty wisdom,
let yourself drop from the sky
and you will fall and rise again,
for nothing every dies."

author anonymous

Leaf cathedrals take no tithes
but confessions of less worthy lives.
No question befits an answer this grand:
the usher-boys teach what we can't understand;
their parents are stewards of their hallowed land.

All perennials half price!

I saw this on a stone at a nursery the other day:

"Love what you grow, and what you love will grow."

valeriegail, ROFL!! That is SO true for me as well.

"The Earth laughs in flowers"

"What grows in a garden so lovely and rare, roses and dahlias and people grow there".

Most favorite:
"She's in there somewhere"
Husband

padraig,

That's too funny!

How about:

I'd rather have roses on my table
than diamonds on my neck

I don't know all the names
of my flowers
but they don't seem to mind

Born to Garden but,
forced to work

God made rainy days
so some housework
will get done

Here lies the last guy
that trampled my flowers

A rose can say I love you
an orchid can enthrall
but a weed bouquet
in a chubby fist...
oh my that says it all

If Eve had a spade in that garden
and had known what to do with it,
we wouldn't have had
all that business about the apple

Jo
8-)

"Hope never dies in a real gardener's heart."

"This is my garden. Trespassers will be shot!. Gone for more bullets"

Mine is "All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so." - Joseph Joubert I love it because it is so true.

Steph

I told my husband I wanted a T-shirt from one of my mailorder catalogs that reads: "Plays in the dirt"

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.-- Joseph Addison

HE WHO SHARES THE JOY IN WHAT HE'S GROWN,
SPREADS JOY ABROAD, AND DOUBLES HIS OWN.

This is my favorite gardening poem:

A Week in the life of a Gardener's Spouse

She dug the plot on Monday-
The soil was rich and fine,
She forgot to thaw out dinner-
So we went out to dine...
She planted roses Tuesday-
She says they are a must,
They really are quite lovely,
But she forgot to dust...
On Wednesday it was daisies-
They opened up with the sun,
All whites and pinks and yellows-
But the laundry wasn't done...
The poppies came on Thursday-
A bright and cheery red,
I guess she really was engrossed-
She never made the bed...
It was violets on Friday-
In colors she adores,
It never bothered her at all-
All the crumbs upon the floors...
I hired a maid on Saturday-
My week is now complete,
My wife can garden all she wants-
The house will still be neat!
It's nearly lunchtime Sunday-
And I cannot find the maid,
Oh no! I don't believe it!
She's out there WITH THE SPADE!!!

"Water is God's gift to every living thing."

My great-uncle, Joe Moreland

God did not make the world for us,but us for the world,to tend to his garden.

"Where flowers bloom, so does hope."......Eleanor Roosevelt

My addition is above somewhere. I'm only back to say thanks to all of you for the wonderful read, thus far.

Al

In the tiny petal of a tiny flower
That grew from a tiny pod
Is the miracle and mystery
Of all creation and God

Thomas Jefferson, and I believe it goes..."Not a blade of grass springs uninteresting to me".

"Tom plant a seed is to believe in tommorrow"

My favorite that I have framed by the front door - A love of life begins in the garden.

A little studied negligence is becoming to a garden.

-Eleanor Perenyi

"Do what you will, but remember, Mother Nature bats last!"