Flowers

Annual Flowers, Bedding Flowers, Summer Flowers
Flowering Trees and Shrubs, Wildflowers, Blossoms
Flower Quotes - Part II

Flowers I     Flowers II     Flowers III     Flowers IV     Flowers V

Flowers Glossary A-M     Flowers Glossary N-Z    

Flowers - Recommended Reading     Flowers - Links      

Nature Spirits     Beauty      Art     Trees     Shrubs   

Gardening     Blog     Months     Herbs     Home

Compiled by Karen and Mike Garofalo
Quotes for Gardeners, Walkers and Lovers of the Green Way
Green Way Research, Red Bluff, California

"A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."
-  Walt Whitman

"For most of us who are intimidated by theories of garden design, the cottage garden provides immediate appeal, since it is a horticultural rather than an architectural solution to a limited area."   
-  Patricia Thorpe

"... the most fiendish plant I know of, the sort of thing Beelzebub might pluck to make a bouquet for his mother-in-law ... it looks as if it had been made out of a sow's ear for the spathe, and the tail of a rat that died of Elephantiasis
for the spadix.  The whole thing is mingling of unwholesome greens, livid purples, and pallid pinks, the livery of putrescence in fact, and it possesses and odour to match the colouring."
-  E. A. Bowles, My Garden in Spring, 1914
   Speaking about the Dracunculus vulgaris, syn. Arum Dracunculus   (Dragon Arum)

   For more suggestions from mAlice about flowers that appeal to "Gothic" tastes be sure to visit:
   Gothic Gardening:  Something Wicked This Way Grows 

"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 yet waking, all at once."
-  George Eliot

"The fairest things have fleetest end,
Their scent survives their close:
But the rose's scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose."
-  Francis Thompson, 1859-1907 

"If all our eyes had the clarity of apples
In a world as altered
As if by the wood betony
And all kinds of basil were the only rulers of the land
It would be good to be together
Both under and above the ground
To be sane as the madwort,
Ripe as corn, safe as sage,
Various as dusty miller and hens & chickens,
In politics as kindly fierce and dragonlike as tarragon,
Revolutionary as the lily."
-  Bernadette Mayer, The Garden   

"To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat."
-  Beverley Nichols

"When Shakyamuni Buddha was at Mount Grdhrakuta, he held up a flower to his listeners.  Everyone was silent.   Only Mahakashyapa broke into a broad smile.  The Buddha said, "I have the True Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine.  This I have entrusted to Mahakashyapa."
-   The Mumonkan, Zen Koans, Case 6 

"To create a little flower is the labor of ages."
-  William Blake

"Flowers have a mysterious and subtle influence upon the feelings, not unlike some strains of music.  They relax the tenseness of the mind.  They dissolve its vigor."   
-  Henry Ward Beecher

"As a flower that is lovely,
Colourful, and fragrant
Even so fruitful is the well-spoken word
Of one who practises it.

As from a heap of flowers
Many kinds of garlands can be made,
So many good deeds should be done
By one born a mortal.

The perfume of flower blows not against the wind,
Nor does the fragrance of sandal-wood, tagara and jasmine,
But the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind.
The virtuous man pervades all directions."
-  Buddhist Sutra 

"A lonely tulip
Dying on the dirt filled road
Never waking up"
-   Allison Borowick 

"Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, drawing them from their homes."
-  Clare Ansberry, The Women of Troy Hill 

Leaping from the Ledge of Infinite Regress,
The Unmoved Mover fell into Formlessness:
Pure silence echoed between the galaxies,
Eons of eons vanished in a second,
Withered trees bloomed in fires,
Polar mountains melted, rivers went dry,
Thusness scattered in sixty directions,
Space became Time, time became things,
Black Holes filled with Nirvana,
A billion samadhi mirrors shattered,              
Galaxies snuggled within a single skull,
Many became One, One only, only One.     
Then, the Divine Illuminatrix in All Beings
Opened Her clouded Eye, to see:
Flowers in the Sky.
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Emptiness in Full Bloom

"An angel, legend has it, took pity on a little shepherd girl who had nothing to give to the Infant Jesus in his manger.  The angel handed her a weed, but first transformed it into this beautiful flower of winter... the Christmas rose, Helleborus niger.
-  Allen Lacy,  The Gardener's Eye, 1991, p. 14 

"It is daffodil time, so the robins all cry,
For the sun’s a big daffodil up in the sky,
And when down the midnight the owl calls “to-whoo”!
Why, then the round moon is a daffodil too;
Now sheer to the bough-tops the sap starts to climb,
So, merry my masters, it’s daffodil time."
-  Clinton Scollard, Daffodil Time

"What a desolate place would be a world without flowers. It would be a face without a smile; a feast without a welcome. Are not flowers the stars of the earth?  Are not our stars the flowers of heaven?"
-  Clara L. Balfour 

"In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.  My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.  The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful."
-  Abram L. Urban

"How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?"   
-  Andrew Marvell 

"Moon, plum blossoms,
this, that,
and the day goes."
-  Issa 

"Compare the silent rose of the sun
And rain, the blood-rose living in its smell,
With this paper, this dust.
That states the point."
-  Wallace Stevens

"The peony
Made him measure it
With his fan"
-  Issa

"made to measure it
with a fan...
the peony"
-  Issa

"The way in which the peony is considered as the active source of the measuring of itself is not merely good psychology, but shows us how Issa looks upon the plant world and upon himself.  Compared to that of the ordinary man, human beings and plants are much closer together in the thought-feeling world of Issa.  The flower stands there in its color and glory.  It does not bloom to be seen, nor does it wish to blush unseen.  It is not dependent upon man, but neither is it independent of him.  Its purposeless purpose is fulfilled in its blooming in solitude and silence, yet when no one is gazing upon it, it has no shape or color or fragrance.  The flower needs the mind, and the mind needs the flower for its fulfillment.  Issa emphasizes the power and activity of the peony not only because
we live in an egocentric, homocentric world, valueless and unpoetical, but also because he wishes to bring out the special nature of the peony, its power and magnificence, its lofty splendor.  Is this splendor in the flower?  Does Issa cause the flower to be measured, or does the flower cause Issa to measure it?" 
-  R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 3, Summer-Autumn 

"Bread feeds the body indeed, but the flowers also feed the soul."
-  The Koran

"When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other."
-  Chinese proverb

"The lily was created on the third day, early in the morning when the Almighty was especially full of good ideas."   
-  Michael Jefferson-Brown

"As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols."
-  Carl G. Yung

"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."
-  Victoria Glendinning

"Just as the bee takes the nectar and leaves without damaging the color or scent of the flowers, so should the sage act in a village."
-  Dhammapada, Sayings of the Buddha, Pali Cannon

"White dew-
one drop
on each thorn"
-  Buson

"A fairy seed I planted, so dry and white and old, there sprang a vine enchanted, with magic flowers of gold."
-  Marjorie Barrows

"How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?"
-  Andrew Marvel

"Every rose is an autograph from the hand of God on his world about us.  He has inscribed his thoughts in these marvelous hieroglyphics which sense and science have, these many thousand years, been seeking to understand."
-  Theodore Parker

"Life is the flower for which love is the honey."
-  Victor Hugo 

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
-  Bible, Matthew, 6:28-29

"There is material enough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of cathedrals."
-  John Ruskin

"Open afresh your rounds of starry folds,
Ye ardent Marigolds."
-  John Keats

"So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers."
-  Author unknown

"To Nature the dweller in the Nile valley linked all that was dear to him: his happiest fetes, poetry, and love - all were bound up with the garden and its products, especially flowers.  Few Oriental nations can think of a festival without flowers, but nowhere are they so completely a part of human life, and so essential, as in [Ancient] Egypt."
-  M. L. Gothein, A History of Garden Art, 1928

"One flower makes no garland."
-  Proverb from Romania

"and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, 
crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog 
and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye-- 
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like 
a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, 
soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sun- 
rays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried 
wire spiderweb, 
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures 
from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster 
fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, 
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O 
my soul, I loved you then!
-  Allen Ginsberg, Sunflower Sutra

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
-  Thomas Gray 

"The love of flowers is really the best teacher
of how to grow and understand them."
-  Max Schling

"The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.  No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially."
-  Plants and Botany Trivia 

"To see the world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wildflower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour."
-  William Blake 

"The bud may have a bitter taste, 
But sweet will be the flower." 
-  William Cowper

"The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose,
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose,
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose,
You, of course, are a rose -
But were always a rose."
-  Robert Frost, 1875-1963 

"When at last I took the time to look into the heart of a flower, it opened up a whole new world; a world where every country walk would be an adventure, where every garden would become an enchanted one."
-  Princess Grace of Monaco 

" 'Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone:
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone."
-  Sir Thomas Moore

"The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today.  There is no time to them.  There is simply the rose.  It is perfect in every moment of its existence."
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I have a garden of my own,
Shining with flowers of every hue;
I loved it dearly while alone,
But I shall love it more with your:
And there the golden bees shall come,
In summer time at the break of morn,
And wake us with their busy hum
Around the Siha's fragrant thorn."
-  Thomas Moore, The Casket, 1835

"O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy."
-  William Blake 

"What a pity flowers can utter no sound!—A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ... oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!" 
-  Henry Ward Beecher

"The grape Hyacinth is the favorite spring flower of my garden - but no!  I though a minute ago the Scilla was! and what place has the Violet?  the Flower de Luce?  I cannot decide, but this I know - it is some blue flower."
-  Alice Morse Earle  

"To win the trophy of enchanting grace:
Ranks of Carnations, to all ladies dear,
Of whose sweet taste I write approval here,
For these pre-eminent myself I think,
As long as you don't overdue the pink."
-  Ruth Pitter, 1897-1992, Other People's Glasshouses, 1941

How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers
-  Illustrated verse by Robert W. Wood, 1907

Every Flower must grow through Dirt.

"Just living is not enough ...
One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."
-  Hans Christian Anderson 

"Correct handling of flowers refines the personality."
-  Bokuyo Takeda 

"Through primrose tufts,
in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."
-  William Wordsworth

"The flower that follows the sun does so even on cloudy days."
-  Robert Leighton (1611-1684)

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."
-  Iris Murdoch

"God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December."
-  James Matthew Barrie, (1860-1937)

"Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he’s dead."
-   Irish Proverbs  

"And these memories and associations that our flowers give us are independent of seasons or of age.  They come to us as well in autumn and winter, in spring and summer; and as to age, the older we get the more, from the very nature of things, do these memories increase and multiply."
-  Canon Ellacombe, In a Gloucestershire Garden, 1895

Qui pingit florem, floris non pingit odorem. 
Who paints the flower does not paint the flower's fragrance.

"Flowers seem intended for a solace of ordinary humanity."
-  John Ruskin

"Give me artificial flowers - porcelain and metal glories - neither fading nor decaying, forms unaging.  Flowers of the splendid gardens of another place, where Forms and Styles and Knowledge dwell.  I love flowers made of glass or gold, true Art's true gifts, their painted hues more beautiful than nature's, worked in nacre and enamel, with perfect leaves and branches."
-  K. P. Kavafis,

"In last night's storm the beautiful blossoms all fell off.  Ah!  What a shame.  When it rains for two or three days, again the weeds have grown up.  Oh, well."
-  Zen Master Hakuun Yasutani, 1885 - 1973; Flowers Fall, 1996, Translated by Paul Jaffe 

Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo
Winter	Spring	Summer	Fall
January	April	July	October
February	May	August	November
March	June	September	December

 

 

 

"The Kingdom of Flowering Plants holds a special compassion for human travail.  Because of this, the essences of flowers support us with a special compassion through our earthbound transformation.  Flower essences contain the vibratory qualities of the flowers, and are made by infusing the flower into spring water under sun or moon light."
-  Flowers of the Soul 

 

"The Chrysanthemum, the Flower of Happiness, was so revered that in Japan only the nobles could grow it.  It has been grown for over 2,000 years all throughout in the Far East.  It has come to mean love and truthfulness.  We may see it carved on the throne of the Emperor of Japan and on many Chinese artifacts."
-   Flowers: Myths, Legends and Traditions 

 

"Some lives, like evening primroses, blossom most beautifully in the evening of life."

 

brilliant yellow
     border of daffodils
           behind barbed wire
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings

 

"And over one more set of hills, along the sea, the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world.  If I had another life I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness."
-  Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer 

 

"Another thing much too commonly seen, is an aberration of the human mind which otherwise I should have been ashamed to warn you of.  It is technically called carpet-gardening.  Need I explain it further?  I had rather not, for when I think of it, even when I am quite alone, I blush with shame at the thought."
-  William Morris, Hope and Fears for Art, 1860

 

"The foxglove, with it's stately bells
Of purple, shall adorn thy dells."
-  D. M. Moir, The Birth of the Flowers

 

"O frost bitten blossoms,
That are unfolding your wings
From out the envious black branches.
Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine.
The twigs conspire against you!
Hear them!
They hold you from behind."
-  William Carlos Williams, Aux Imagistes, 1914

 

"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."
-  Victoria Glendinning, Green Words, 1986

 

"Won't you come into my garden?  I would like my roses to see you."
-  Richard Sheridan

 

"Bloom where you are planted!"
-  Mary Engelbert 

 

"And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not worry or make clothes for themselves.  But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers."
-  Bible, Matthew 6: 28, 29, & 30 

 

"I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border.  I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error."
-  Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988

 

"Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers and never succeeding."
-  Marc Chagall 

 

"I haven't much time to be fond of anything . . . But when I have a moment's fondness to bestow, most times . . . the roses get it." 
-  William Wilkie Collins

 

Cloud Hands Blog 

 

What kind of flowers do you give to King Tut?
Chrysanthemummies

 

"The original Greek meaning of the word anthology is a collection or gathering of flowers in bloom."
-  Jane Garmey

 

"One day when I was young, and walking with a friend, a field dry as straw bloomed with flowers.  "Oh, glory!" we breathed, my good friend and I, for the flowers blazed like suns and fire and rainbows.  They sprang from folds between hillsides, peeked from pockets of shade.  Spiraling - dancing - they followed us home..."
-  Maggie Streincrohn Davis 

 

"A garden of roses is a fragrant piece of heaven.  A garden without roses is a sorry thing."
-  Matthew A. R. Bassity

 

Next Page:  Flowers - Quotes for Gardeners, Part III

Flowers I     Flowers II     Flowers III     Flowers IV     Flowers V

Flowers Glossary A-M     Flowers Glossary N-Z    

Flowers - Recommended Reading     Flowers - Links      

Nature Spirits     Beauty      Art     Trees   

Gardening     Months     Herbs     Home

 

 

  

 

 

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