A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile,
available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar.
Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force,
all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth.
We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages,
we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.
I know of no other genus whose plants flower out-of-doors
every day of the year. I know of no other genus with one
or more species coming into bloom or growth,
peaking or going dormant at every season.
I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful
than the bluebell I have been looking at.
I know the beauty of our Lord by it.
To pick a flower is so much more satisfying than just observing it,
or photographing it ... So in later years, I have grown in my
garden as many flowers as possible for children to pick.
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Who can estimate the elevating and refining influences and moral value
of flowers with all their graceful forms, bewitching shades and combinations
of colors and exquisitely varied perfumes? These silent influences are
unconsciously felt even by those who do not appreciate them consciously
and thus with better and still better fruits, nuts, grains, vegetables and
flowers, will the earth be transformed, man's thought refined, and turned
from the base destructive forces into nobler production. One which will
lift him to high planes of action toward the happy day when the Creator
of all this beautiful work is more acknowledged and loved, and where man
shall offer his brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains,
better fruit and fairer flowers from the bounty of this earth.
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd
palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich
green,
with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I
love,
With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
Different flowers look good to different people
Pick the flower when it is ready to be picked.
The flower that you spent time to care for does not grow while the willow
that your accidentally planted flourishes and gives shade.
f of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And of thy meager store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
In friendship's fragrant garden,
There are flowers of every hue.
Each with its own fair beauty
And its gift of joy for you.
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it,
it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to
someone else. Most people in the city rush around so,
they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see
it whether they want to or not.
If, I can someday see M. Claude Monet's garden, I feel sure that I shall see something that
is not so much a garden of flowers as of colours and tones, less an old-fashioned flower
garden than a colour garden, so to speak, one that achieves an effect not entirely nature's,
because it was planted so that only the flowers with matching colours will bloom at the
same time, harmonized in an infinite stretch of blue or pink.
Science, or para-science, tells us that geraniums bloom better if they
are spoken to. But a kind word every now and then is really quite
enough. Too much attention, like too much feeding, and weeding
and hoeing, inhibits and embarrasses them.
Let me show you
Sweet smell of a delicate whisper
Behind the vision of gardens
Go and read of your life
Tiny ripping at the heart
Drunk from a rose
The garden should be adorned with roses and lilies, the turnsole, violets, and mandrake;
there you should have parsley, cost, fennel, southern-wood, coriander, sage, savory,
hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuces, garden-cress, and peonies. There
should also be beds planted with onions, leeks, garlic, pumpkins and shallots. The
cucumber growing in its lap, the drowsy poppy, the daffodil and brank-ursine ennoble
a garden. Nor are there wanting, if occasion further thee, pottage-herbs: beets,
herb-mercury, orache, sorrel and mallows, anise, mustard, white pepper and
wormwood do good service to the gardener.
The only Zen you'll find flowering in the garden is the Zen you bring there each day.
Graveyards and landscape gardens, coffins and flowers - fitting friends.
Enamored of these flowers, certainly - butterflies, bees and me.
Fruits, nuts, grains ... sex and food. Flowers ... sex and beauty.
Flowers do not grow on the map of your garden.
A flower needs roots; beauty of society of minds.
Even the fruitless will sometimes flower.
The gardens that make us happiest flourish because we have taken the time to make sure
they feed our souls and fill a special place in our lives. Sometimes you have to think about
what you really want from your garden ...
once the beds are laid out and the rose bushes planted.
You love the roses - so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!
