Gardening Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old gardening quotes, gardening sayings, and gardening proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. Karel Capek
Gardening is ultimately a folly whose goal is to provide delight. Deborah Needleman
Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas. Elizabeth Murray
To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi
There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight. Gertrude Jekyll
Gardening is the purest of human pleasures. Francis Bacon
We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest. Voltaire
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
Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. Allan Armitage
Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. Lindley Karstens
One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. W.E. Johns
Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson
Gardening has a magical quality when you are a child. Barbara Damrosch
The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies. Gertrude Jekyll
Once we become interested in the progress of the plants in our care, their development becomes a part of the rhythm of our own lives and we are refreshed by it. Thalassa Cruso
Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. Henry David Thoreau
Gardening requires lots of water -- most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson
There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments. Janet Kilburn Phillips
There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder. Alfred Austin
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Thomas Jefferson
Successful gardening is doing what has to be done when it has to be done the way it ought to be done whether you want to do it or not. Jerry Baker
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. May Sarton
We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it's our garden that is really nurturing us. Jenny Uglow
Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden? Robert Brault
Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time. William Cowper
All gardening is landscape painting. Alexander Pope
How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. Alexander Smith
Gardening is not a rational act. Margaret Atwood
One of the healthiest ways to gamble is with a spade and a packet of seeds. Dan Bennett
I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation. Phyllis Theroux
When I go into the garden with a spade and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is peace in the garden. Peace and results. Ruth Stout
Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next years will be better. It is easy to age when there's nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up. Allan Armitage
No sooner did I bend over and scratch the soil with the hoe that I began to unearth bits and pieces of my past. memories forever rooted in time were clustered in my garden consciousness like potatoes, waiting, crying to be dug up. I plant flowers and vegetables. I harvest memories—and life. Nancy H. Jordan
Gardening is a metaphor for life, teaching you to nourish new life and weed out that which cannot succeed. Nelson Mandela
Garden making, like gardening itself, concerns the relationship of the human being to his natural surroundings. Russell Page
An hour's hard digging is a good way of getting one's mind back in the right perspective. Richard Briers
In almost every garden, the land is made better and so is the gardener. Robert Rodale
The great challenge for the garden designer is not to make the garden look natural, but to make the garden so that the people in it will feel natural. Lawrence Halprin
A garden is not a place: it is a passage, a passion. We don't know where we're going; to pass through is enough; to pass through is to remain. Octavio Paz
A garden is a reflection of its owner, a thing of beauty that changes over time, a window to the creativity within. Lee Miller
We, gardeners, are healthy, joyous, natural creatures. We are practical, patient, optimistic. We declare our optimism every year, every season, with every act of planting. Carol Deppe
Gardeners must dance with feedback, play with results, turn as they learn. Learning to think as a gardener is inseparable from the acts of gardening. Learning how to garden is learning how to slow down. Wise is the person whose heart and mind listen to what nature says. Time will tell, but we often fail to listen. Michael P. Garofalo
At the heart of gardening, there is a belief in the miraculous. Mirabel Osler
Trivial annoyances slough off in a garden and problems often solve themselves there as you weed and plant. Gardening is such satisfyingly creative work, too; you can see the beautiful results of your efforts. Helen Van Pelt Wilson
Gardening is any way that humans and nature come together with the intent of creating beauty. Tina James
I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden. John Erskine
There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. Mirabel Osler
But each spring... a gardening instinct, sure as the sap rising in the trees, stirs within us. We look about and decide to tame another little bit of ground. Lewis Gantt
Gardening is the best therapy in the world. You can put so much into it and get so much back...How lucky we are to live on this beautiful earth— you can bring the beauty to yourselves through gardening. C.Z. Guest
The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. Hanna Rion
Weather means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans. Marcelene Cox
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust
To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi
Gardening, too, is that kindliest of arts, which makes requital tenfold in kind for every work of labourer. Xenophon
Gardening, in the perfection to which it has been lately brought in England, is entitled to a position of considerable rank among the liberal arts. Thomas Whateley
The Art of Gardening may be deemed the most useful and entertaining of all others, as it expands the variegated beauties of nature, and administers the most wholesome food to the body. Samuel Cook
Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden. Sir Walter Scott
Good gardening is very simple, really. You just have to learn to think like a plant. Barbara Damrosch
Working in the garden gives me something beyond the enjoyment of the senses. It gives me a profound feeling of inner peace. Ruth Stout