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Quotes and collected thoughts on
Gardening and Gardeners. A few seeds for
thought gathered from
Judy
Glatstein's CONSIDER
THE LEAF. Were I the lady of the manor, with ample funds, more leisure, and a head gardener with support staff, this wouldn't be a problem. In my imagination is a gilded age of opportunity, wherein I drift through the garden on a golden afternoon. I am wearing a flowered dress, wide-brimmed straw hat, and gloves, carrying a basket with a pair of secateurs, and smiling benignly at the gardeners doing the real work. But just like most other gardeners I know, my real costume is a pair of filthy blue jeans and an old tee-shirt. Out in the garden, as light fades, I pitch the tools - an 8-pound mattock for hacking at my New Jersey clay and a Weed Wrench to yank out multiflora roses (Rosa multiflora) - back into the tool shed and empty assorted 5-gallon Sheetrock buckets filled with lesser rocks and weeds. My time is limited. I cannot afford high-maintenance plants needing special attention in exchange for a two-week bloom period. In fact, even easily grown plants that "pay back" with a two-week period of bloom and nothing more just do not do it for me. I need plants that pay their way. In return for room and board (make that planting room and garden maintenance) I want easy-care plants with extended interest. After all, even in cold-winter regions the growing season lasts for several months. Flowers are great, but I consider them an embellishment for plants with fantastic foliage, the accessories that set off that basic black dress." from Judy Glatstein's, |
"Every
blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and
whispers,
"Spring has hit
with a visual thunderclap followed by trumpet flourishes."
A gardener has reached the top of their craft the day they come to realize that they are not in control at all! At best we're only a humble servant to the insistence of natural forces much more learned than we are.
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