garden is the place millions of people go to touch the earth, to smell
flowers - to use some of that fabled human brainpower in the cause of better
participating with natural processes in the place they call home. It serves
as an art project, an organic produce market, a spiritual practice, a pharmacy.
It offers ongoing lessons in ecology, biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology.
Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the
passage of time. It bestows
on its practitioners a genuine sense of admiration for the plants, the
soil, the sun, the water.
Jim Nollman, Why We Garden:
Cultivating a Sense of Place,
1994, p. 2

od
Almighty first planted a garden; and indeed, it is the purest of human
pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without
which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.
Frances Bacon, 1625
he
greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.
Hanna Rion


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Gardens
part two

ature
in the garden is nature tamed, cultivated, made subservient to human purpose,
brought into subjection to conscious purpose. A garden is not merely a
piece of nature fenced in near the house, like a wolf chained at the back
door; but nature cultivated and trained like a dog tamed and trained for
human ends. Art in the garden is the human element appropriating and elevating
the natural for human purpose.
Abram Linwood Urban

n
my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is
also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the
flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.
Abram Linwood Urban

garden
should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion, experiment, adventure;
above all it should be an inquisitive, loving, but self-critical journey
on the part of its owner.
H. E. Bates

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