279 Quotes About Gardening

One of the maxims of the new field of conservation biological control is that to control insect herbivores, you must maintain populations of insect herbivores.

Spring has always been the dearest friend to me, with her voice like a feather tossed on the wind. With a tin pail of water in hand, I set out into the gardens grown in her warmth. A straw hat shields my cheek from the rosy stain of her sunlit kiss. When the work of the day is done, I find my little shelter in her embrace.

Almost anything you do in the garden, for example weeding, is an effort to create some sort of order out of nature's tendency to run wild. There has to be a certain degree of domestication in a garden. The danger is that you can so tame your garden that it becomes a thing. It becomes landscaping.

How many times have you bought a plant that is advertised as being “pest free”? A plant that is “pest free” is inherently unpalatable to insects and often is not susceptible to local diseases. Because such plants do not pass the energy they capture from the sun up the food chain, they do not become functioning members of the ecosystem in which they are planted.

Landscaping is a never-ending attempt to make some parts of nature look civilized.

Gardeners impose human values on disorderly nature, knowing full well that nature must win in the end. Gardening is gentle gallantry. - Rosemary Butler

If I can’t garden in it, then I won’t wear it.

There really isn’t anything like eating from your own garden.

When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and whether they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. It's that green stripe you get around the sole of your shoes when you mow the lawn. Life in the age to come. Earthy.