35 inspirational gardening quotes and famous proverbs

If you have a garden in your library, everything will be complete. – Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letter to Varro, 1st century AD

Life begins the day you start a garden. – Chinese proverb

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust. — Gertrude Jekyll (2011) ‘Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur’ Cambridge University Press

Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years. – Unknown

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade. –Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Glory of the Garden’ (1911)

Garden as though you will live forever. – William Kent

There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments. – Janet Kilburn Phillips

The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies, but never grows to the enduring happiness that the love of gardening gives. – Gertrude Jekyll (2016) ‘Wood and Garden – Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur’ Read Books Ltd

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures. – Francis Bacon (1625) Essays ‘Of Gardens’

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. – Greek proverb

The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway. – Michael Pollan (2007) ‘Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education’ p.64, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves. – Robert Louis Stevenson (2015) ‘The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition)

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul. – Alfred Austin “Growing with the Seasons: A Sharing of Insights Into the Creative Aspects of Organic Gardening”. Book by Frank Giannangelo and Vicky Giannangelo, July 1, 2008.

I like gardening. It’s a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself. – Alice Sebold “Above and beyond”. Interview with Katharine Viner, www.theguardian.com. August 23, 2002

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. – May Sarton (2014). “At Seventy: A Journal”, p.53, Open Road Media

If you’ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden. – Robert Brault

The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives. – Gertrude Jekyll (2011). “Wood and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical, of a Working Amateur”, p.1, Cambridge University Press

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. – Claire Joyes, Claude Monet (1975). “Monet at Giverny”, Wh Smith Pub

Gardeners, I think, dream bigger dreams than emperors. – Mary Cantwell

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. – A.A. Milne, ‘If I May’ Miniature Masterpieces (30 Oct. 2015)

All gardeners know better than other gardeners. – Chinese proverb