Gardening

Gardening is the process or pastime of planning and cultivating soil or a hydroponic system in a garden to grow plants for their yield of vegetables, fruits, flowers, herbs, appearances, or scents.

Quotes

• ... In the culture of flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be anything, solitary or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager's porch, sweeps also over the grounds of the nobleman; and as the rain descends on the just and on the unjust, so it communicates to all gardeners, both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man, in developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is, in some sort, the gardener of everybody else.
  The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and all periods of time. The scholar and the statesman, men of peace and men of war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The most ancient people of the earth had gardens where there is now nothing but solitary heaps of earth. The poor man in crowded cities gardens still in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; and even the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years of solitary confinement. Surely, then, the gardener who produces shapes and objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold upon the world's remembrance when he himself becomes in need of comfort.
  • Charles Dickens, GARDENERS AND GARDENING. LONDON, JUNE 14, 1852. Speeches: Literary and Social, The Complete Works of Charles Dickens (dickens-literature.com). (after dinner speech at the Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, held at the London Tavern)

• Gardening may be a fun and relaxing way to get in touch with nature, but did you know that it also has plenty of health benefits? Gardening is an activity that’s good for both the mind and body, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Plus, you get to eat the delicious fruits, vegetables and herbs that you grow. So, grab your tools and get in the dirt!
  • Julia Haskins, (2017) . "Gardening: A fun hobby that’s good for your health". The Nation's Health 47 (5): 17–21.

• I rejoice when I see any one, and especially children, inquiring about flowers, and wanting gardens of their own, and carefully working in them. For the love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies, once sown never dies, but always grows and grows to an enduring and ever-increasing source of happiness.
  • Gertrude Jekyll, Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur. Longmans, Green & Company. 1904. pp. 1–2.  (286 pages; 1st edition 1899)

• I’m excited to plant everything. We vow every fall that our garden next year will be smaller. And every year, it isn’t. We love so many things that can only come from our garden. Our favorite tomato varieties – Jaune flammé (for roasting), Principe Borghese (for drying), Indigo kumquat, Japanese Trifele, Black Krim (just yum) – cannot be bought. Nor does our grocery store sell fresh edamame, or cardoons, or Pimientos de Padron, or Chioggia beets, or haricots verts. Or dark red sunflowers; don’t get me started on the flowers. We have our own line of sweet potatoes we’ve bred for ten years to thrive in this microclimate. I don’t need much in life to be happy, but scarlet sunflowers and perfect sweet potatoes are on the short list. Now we’ve also blocked out a little section where our 6-year-old grandson plants all his favorite things. You can see our predicament.
  • Barbara Kingsolver as quoted by Martha Schubert in: (Spring 2023) "A Whetstone to the Spirit: An Interview with Barbara Kingsolver. 'The Poisonwood Bible' author on mothering, farming, ecology, and life". Orion Magazine.

• ... if you are interested in gardening, remember that all the ridiculous things folks do in gardening are the results of fancy—not imagination—which manifests itself in three ways:
    1. In striving after the unique instead of the typical, which results in strange, eccentric things.
    2. In desiring complexity of design instead of simplicity; which results in elaborate carpet bedding instead of borders of hardy flowers.
    3. In desiring display instead of privacy; which results in pretentious formal gardens instead of gardens that have the atmosphere of peace and affectionate family life.
  • Wilhelm Miller, (July 1907) "True and false originality in garden desing". The Garden Magazine V (3): 334–337 & 354–356. (quote from p. 356)

See also

• Gardens

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Gardening on Wikipedia