Reflections on the Joys of Gardening

A while back I read a great opinion piece, “The Joy of Quiet” that talked about how “the average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen…in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).”  It went on to site research findings that indicate “that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that, empathy, as well as deep thought, depends (as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have found) on neural processes that are “inherently slow.”

I am fortunate to work in an industry where I get to spend at least some time contemplating nature, although admittedly, usually from my office window.  Today’s post is simply a random collection of quotes I have collected that I hope serve as a gentle reminder of how rejuvenating the act of gardening is and how important it is to stay in touch with nature.

• The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. – George Bernard Shaw

• I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation. – Phyllis Theroux

• When heaven falls to earth it becomes a garden. – Stoufer

• 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

• A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit. – D. Elton Trueblood

• I do some of my best thinking while pulling weeds. – Martha Smith

• Garden as though you will live forever. – William Kent

• I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow. – David Hobson

• Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus

• Grow what you love. The love will keep it growing. – Emilie Barnes

• Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson

• Working in the garden gives me something beyond the enjoyment of the senses. It gives me a profound feeling of inner peace. – Ruth Stout

• No two gardens are the same. No two days are the same in one garden. –  Hugh Johnson

• Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. – Les Brown

• He who plants a tree, plants a hope. – Lucy Larcom

• Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas. – Elizabeth Murray