Sep 6

Sep 6 Oh no, not garden quotes please!

Some time

I’ve been wanting to put together some garden quotes for some time. But when the time came it all fell apart.

The quotes I had – stored in dozens of folder over 15 years – I didn’t feel it for them anymore. It’s as if their time had passed. And the quotes I didn’t have – the stuff of hunches – they never existed, or I never found them. Except for a few, but they just weren’t right. They weren’t what I imagined ‘garden quotes’ to be.

Is this what time does – turn everything unrecognisable?

Maybe I’m just cranky in my old age. There are a lot of fluffy quotes out there. The garden varieties are very garden variety – different versions of ‘gardening is wondrous for the soul’. Which is true of course but we know that. It’s a given. I want something else.

I want something else – words that speak to this blog & are not so universal as to come from ‘52 inspirational garden quotes to start your day’ lists. So I started from scratch. And after some time here we are.

Enjoy, go digging. There will be more too.

Ground/ed

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

Ancient Greek proverb

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‘It turns out that groundedness requires actual ground’

Jenny Odell, US artist, writer & educator
from her book How to Do Nothing:
Resisting the Attention Economy (2019)

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'Our philosophy towards plants & gardens is about creating a personal haven to keep one in touch the things that really matter in life – the beauty and bountifulness of nature, sharing with friends and family, and care and consideration for all living things.'

from website of Highview Garden Tasmania,
website (& possibly nursery) defunct
quote c.2010

Studies

‘Young people on average can recognise over 1,000 corporate logos but only a handful of plants and animals native to their places.’

David W Orr, US environmental academic
from his essay ‘Political Economy
& the Ecology of Childhood' (2002)

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‘More than one in four parents say their children have little or no interest in the natural world. …

The survey found that children spent over 5½ hours a day watching TV, using phones or gaming, compared to just 1½ hours outside with nature.’

Research from activity app Hoop
source: www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49331144
14 August 2019

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‘Changing vegetation cover [in cities] from 10% to 100% could decrease air temperature by up to 1 degree.’

Stephanie Jacobs, Ailie Gallant & Nigel Tapper
Australian researchers from Monash University
from their paper The Sensitivity of Urban
Meteorology to Soil Moisture Boundary
Conditions: A Case Study in Melbourne (2017)

Pandemic

‘Recently, after briefly complimenting an elderly gentleman on his majestic jungle of a front yard, he said “May your soul flourish.” In a time of individualism, echo-chambers, transient neighbourhoods, low home ownership & mistrust of strangers, it’s these small exchanges that make me think that everything’s okay.’

Robert Champion, NSW landscape designer
from 'Value of Front Gardens in a Pandemic, and Always'
on The Planthunter website, 8 May 2020

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‘I was worried as a journalist about what can I write about gardening & the pandemic. And I didn’t even have to think about it – because the garden is there for a pandemic.’

Adrian Higgins, US garden writer
in an interview with Margaret Roach
on her website A Way To Garden, 20 June 2020.

Holy Grail

‘I would love to meet the people responsible for names like Dracula (a genus of orchids) or Quisqualis (a play on words for the Latin quis, meaning “who”, and qualis, meaning “what”). Uvularia, a dainty herbaceous perennial with pendant flowers, was named after the uvula – that lump of hanging skin at the back of one's mouth.’

Stephen Ryan, Australian master plantsman
& owner of Dicksonia Rare Plants nursery
from his book Exceptional Plants (1999), p128

Uvularia grandiflora – dangling, hanging … — *Uvularia grandiflora* – dangling, hanging …

'A sacred tree in India, often planted close to Buddhist and Hindu temples. … One particularly spectacular heritage specimen, estimated to be over 500+ years old, can be found in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Hills Wildlife Sanctuary in South India. When in full bloom the fragrance spreads a radius of several kilometres. Local forest people consider the tree a "living temple".'

reviewer Desertboot
on the Dave's Garden website
regarding the Michelia Champaca tree, c.2008

Laments

‘If these are the achievements of man, give me the achievements of geraniums.’

Beverley Nichols, British author
from Green Grows the City:
the Story of a London Garden (1939)

Geraniums - achieving big sh!t in classic Mediterranean window box plantings.

'Gardening is often reduced to the practical and the horticultural, [to] a set of tasks: mow, prune, kill, repeat. The deeper importance and value of the act rarely warrants a mention…'

Georgina Reid, Australian garden writer
& designer, from her book The Planthunter:
Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants (2018)

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‘We already have more than enough books that tell us how to make gardens for the complacent, expensive outdoor garden rooms for thoughtless leisure, gardens to establish social status.’

James Golden, US gardener & garden writer
in a review of book The Planthunter (above)
on blog View from Federal Twist, 3 June 2019

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‘We treat plants like pieces of jewellery, fine dresses & designer shoes. …Instead of celebrating plants as part of the global community, highlighting what each can do for life beyond our own visual pleasure, we focus on a new leaf colour or bloom.’