Garden Quotes

“The garden was in full verdure, and at Pokrovski nightingales had their homes on all sides in the thick shrubbery. Here and there, large clumps of lilacs raised their heads, enamelled with the white or pale purple of their opening flowers. The leaves in the birch alleys seemed transparent in the rays of the setting sun. The terrace lay in refreshing shade, and the light evening dew was gathering upon the grass.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.”
― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul”
― Alfred Austin

“Healthy boundaries are not walls. They are gates and fences that allow you to enjoy the beauty of your own garden.”
― Lydia Hall

“Embrace who you are
and blossom as you are.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Safa Tempo: Poems New & Selected

“The garden is where my soul lives.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“This Elixir Smites by Stewart Stafford

How dull the rose's painted lustre,
As bees gossip, all mistrust her,
Window taps on stormy nights,
Aphids swarm as suckling mites.

Once buds entwined at Nature's hip,
Now cleft in two and water-dipped,
Glass-twisted strangest shape,
Mauve-petalled mausoleum draped.

Neglected drops in muted drought,
The bloody thorns scratch about,
A lush finger in withered point,
Pruned stem of glum conjoint.

Cataclysms from petty faults arise;
Reflection pardoned in imperfect eyes.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“There is not a creature in all this part of the world who could in the least understand with what heart-beatings I am looking forward to the flowering of these roses, and not a German gardening book that does not relegate all tea-roses to hot-houses, imprisoning them for life, and depriving them for ever of the breath of God.”
― Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden

“When people get kinder, our society blooms for the better.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“The main rectangular swimming pool ran perpendicular to the house, which you wouldn't know because it was almost completely covered in a cloud of white. I walked closer, stunned at the beautiful lotus and water lily blooms floating beneath my feet. A glass aisle was laid across the center. You felt like you were walking---or sitting--- in a Monet painting. Complementary flowers lined the sides of the aisles, with chairs extending on either side of the now-concealed pool deck. I had no idea what wizardry kept the central flowers from floating freely, but my sister would walk down the aisle above a lush bed of white blossoms.
Beside it, the ornamental gardens had been tented for the reception. Cedric had managed to integrate the existing stone sculptures (French, Greek, and Italian antiques, of course) into the design. Tables dotted the scene, covered in custom cream linens with Italian lace overlays. Cut crystal stemware and antique silverware donned each place setting and would sparkle later that evening from the glow cast down from the crystal chandeliers overhead. And the flowers. The all-white flowers also created a table-runner effect that filled the entire length of each table and spilled over and down the sides.
A backdrop and stage had been erected at the end opposite the house, then covered in a cascade of white peonies and roses and mirrored by florals draped around the doorframes and windows of the back of our house.
It was an enchanted garden, rivaling that of a royal wedding.”
― Mary Hollis Huddleston, Piece of Cake: A Novel

“Sometimes there is a summer evening so perfect the very air seems charged with magic. In England, such evenings are not only rare, they are intensely brittle.”
― Margaret Buntrock, Pains Hill

“A garden can always change things,” she said smiling as she knelt down and dug her hands into the earth. “With new seeds there are new beginnings.”
― Nina Willner , Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall

“Flowers not only make our lives better, but they also show us how to bloom together.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“A world without politics would be like a garden without weeds.”
― Dipti Dhakul

“If I were a garden
I’d be one with many weeds”
― Florence Virginia Stephenson, Flour & Salt: A novel

“A garden heals the saddened heart
Its fruit brings light out of the dark

A passing bee, in zigging zee’s
Wakes up your eyes so you can see

Away from those who brought you hurt
Your soiled feet find love in dirt

So from your crown, down to your toes
Your heart heals as your garden grows.”
― Florence Virginia Stephenson

“A Garden Epitaph by Stewart Stafford

From a verdant birth,
Two roses entwined together,
A union withered from the earth,
Root quest in envenomed weather.

Green fingers pruned with ill will,
Each barb taken to wounded hearts,
Cut natures freed of earthly swill,
Two crimson blooms, beyond scars.

Master gardener, just hear me,
If you see devotion, leave it be,
In silent witness, wonders see,
Lest you hasten obsequies.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“My mother I associated with the softer, smoother flavors of the desserts she made, and with the landscape of our farmhouse--- especially with the garden she loved, the pink and lavender candy-land of geraniums, peonies, and sweet peas.”
― Charlotte Silver, Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood

“Gwendal and I wanted the garden to retain some of its disorder, some of its surprises. He had trimmed the rosebushes in the fall. Jewel-like buds, round and tight, had begun to form on the branches; a bed of tiny violets grew at their base. The new mint, insistent as a hormonal teenage boy, began to poke through in inch-high sprouts. We had never seen the garden at this season before. I rubbed a sage leaf between my fingers; the musky oil stuck to my skin. I'd like to greet the unknown with pleasure. If I could just manage my fear, there might be something wondrous about not knowing what will pop up next.”
― Elizabeth Bard, Picnic in Provence: A Memoir with Recipes

“She paused, taking in the display of scarlet pelargoniums, the topiary lion painstakingly created by Hoskins, the head gardener, and the tall monkey-puzzle tree that her father had planted on the occasion of her birth twenty-five years before. She noticed bees flitting from bloom to bloom, filling the air with the sound of their low hum, and over that the bright squawks of a pair of choughs. In the distance, the kitchen garden beckoned, sunlight reflecting off the panes of the glasshouse, where pineapples and tomatoes grew in the forced tropical heat.”
― Kayte Nunn

“I say: Once you go green
You won't let the blues in.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, A-Z of Happiness: Tips for Living and Breaking Through the Chain that Separates You from Getting That Dream Job

“Every day, at least for a few minutes, go and be with the plants. Look at them and smile, touch them with love, and talk to them for a while. These little engagements will recuperate your heart and nurture your soul.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“I have gone and turned a graveyard into a garden.
Something is growing from all that died inside of me.”
― Kristina Mahr

“Anne Hathaway's Garden by Stewart Stafford

In Stratford, lies a garden's tended hair,
Two lovebirds, Avon swans, nested there.
Anne kept counsel as Shakespeare's bride,
United home and clan over distance wide.

Pestilence, flood and war roared with fright,
This English idyll thrived in the pastoral light,
Rose, rosemary pruned with nurturing care,
Floral Tudor fireworks, exploding fragrant air.

The Bard, swansong past, returned to her,
Wooed Anne with words, the heartbeat spur,
To walk and reminisce among the green,
Sparked a fire that life apart rendered lean.

Anne Hathaway's garden outlived them all,
Paralleled words, evergreen, as in virgin scrawl.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Your eyes on my cheeks turned them into a rose garden...”
― Jayita Bhattacharjee

“It was a garden for the blind: a constant offence to the eyes, a pleasure strong if somewhat crude to the nose.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“If a home has not a garden and an old tree, I see not whence the every-day joys of life are to come!”
― Younghill Kang, East Goes West: The Making of an Oriental Yankee

“She gazed across the veranda to a formal garden beyond. An area of green lawn was set up with chairs and tables, while behind them a fountain shot water high and splashed those sitting too close to it. Behind the fountain, parterre hedges were clipped to perfection. People milled about or stood in groups chatting.”
― Ellen Read, Murder at Monterey

“To me planting flowers and caring for them as they mature and bloom is the coolest way to enrich myself daily and turn my dreams into reality.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Gardening, is all about knowing where to plant your celebrations!”
― Dipti Dhakul, Quote: +/-