[A sheared hedge] ... "signifies
vision, persistence, and patience - qualities we
crave in today's world. Yet many people do make the commitment. They
create
hedges, care for them eagerly, and gain much satisfaction from the process.
Why? Perhaps it's because shaping a hedge is the closest most of us will ever
come to doing sculpture or erecting a monument, but I think the real reward is
more mundane. Shearing is very empowering - it gives you an exhilarating sense
of control and achievement. You can stand back afterward and say,
look what I've done.
- Rita Buchanan, All About Hedges
A fairy seed I planted,
so dry and white and old,
there sprang a vine enchanted,
with magic flowers of gold.
- Marjorie Barrows
It is only necessary that man should
start a fence that Nature
should carry it on and complete it. The farmer cannot plow
quite up to the rails or wall which he himself has placed, and
hence it often becomes a hedgerow and sometimes a coppice.
- Henry D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1851
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite canopied over with luscious woodbine
With sweet muskroses and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delights.
- Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Every flower about a house certifies
to the refinement of somebody.
Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy"
- Robert G. Ingersoll
Of all formal things in the world, a
clipped hedge is the most formal;
and of all the informal things in the world, a forest tree is
the most informal.
- Henry Ward Beecher
Grapes and Wines - Quotes for Gardeners
I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground
of my own where I have planted vines and orchard
trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the
healing shadow of the woods. Better than any
argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet
red berries in a cup.
- Wendell Berry
I see in many places little barberry
bushes just come up densely
in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been
eaten by the cows. Here they find manure and an open space for
the first year at least, when they are not choked by grass or
weeds. In this way, evidently, many of these
clumps of barberries are commenced.
- Henry David Thoreau, Journal, June 28, 1858
Texture and foliage
keep a garden interesting through the season.
Flowers are just moments of gratification.
- Kevin Doyle
After a shower
the clearing sky smells faintly
of hawthorne blossoms
- Shiki
A hedge between keeps friendship
green.
French Proverb
Amazingly enough, almost all the fruits grown
in home gardens, from strawberries
to apricots, are members of the same plant family, Rosaceae, along with such
decorative favorites as roses, mountain ash, flowering quince .... Worldwide,
there are about 3,400 members of this very ancient plant group,
which exhibit primitive characteristics.
- Diane E. Bilderback
The sun, with all those planets
revolving around it and dependent on it, can
still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
- Galileo
It has been said that vines are to bits of architecture what a dress is to a woman.
It may serve to enhance beauty or to cover defects..
- Loring Underwood
Links and References
All About Hedges: How to Frame Your Garden With Living Walls. By Rita Buchanan. Country Living Gardener, October 1999, pp. 97-104.
Shrub 4U - Trees Lots of links about shrubs and small trees.
More Quotes
for
Gardeners
Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul
Simplicity
and the Simple Life
Pulling Onions
Quips, Maxims and Observations by Michael P.
Garofalo
Haiku Poetry - Links and References
Cliches for Gardeners and Farmers
The History of Gardening
Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century
Quotes
for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,000 Quotes, Arranged by 105 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo
I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas,
Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California
A Short Biography of Mike Garofalo
Shrubs, Vines, Hedges. Version 3..3.1.
Green Way Research
The Poetry Notebooks of Mike Garofalo
The History of Gardening Timelines
Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong