FAVORITE GARDEN QUOTES:

  • “….A small plot of ground well ordered turns to greater advantage than a large one neglected…..”
    –Leonard Meager,The New Art of Gardening
  • “Garden design affects the way you live—well thought out space allows you to do all those activities you want.” 
    –author unknown.
  • “Every aspect of design should serve function before form.”
    –paraphrased Louis Sullivan
  • “Landscaping solves problems—what problems do you need solved?”
    –author unknown
  • “As designers, our success in the garden is measured by the experience of the visitors; what they feel and what they take away from their visit, from their journey through our creations.”
    –Scott Hokunson
  • “Design is not making beauty; beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, and love.”
    –Louis Kahn
  • “Green Fingers are the extension of a verdant heart.”
    –Russell Page
  • “It doesn’t matter if the area in question has A/C units, electric boxes, a dog run, garbage cans, or a compost bin. When finished, all these areas must pass this test question, ‘Would a photograph of this view be so fabulous it could be on the cover of a garden magazine?’”
    –Tara Dillard
  • “It is the curse of a vivid imagination, without no training to see the finished result and not know the means by which to obtain it.”
    –Rocaille Walls
  • “Garden design is all about arranging the masses and the forms of a space and taking advantage of the concept of figure and ground. The first unconscious observation most of us make when we view a space is about how these negative and positive spaces interplay with one another, and whether that interaction is pleasing to us. If it is not, we dismiss the space as being unfinished or disproportionate, where if it is pleasing to us, we are likely to find the garden space lovely.”
    –Deborah Silver
  • “It isn’t that I don’t like sweet disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged.”
    –Vita Sackville West
  • “Your garden needs to tell one story, one Big Idea, that will draw all parts into a coherent whole. Well-designed paths leading out from those buildings to link up with one another will help you pull your garden into a coherent whole. The result will be a marriage, a felt inevitable relationship between house and garden.”
    –Deborah Silver
  • “Your overall goal is to live in a house in a garden.”
    –Gordon Hayward
  • “Flowers always make people feel better, happier, and more helpful: they are sunshine, food, and medicine to the soul.”
    –Luther Burbank
  • “The simpler a Garden Design, the greater its Wisdom.”
    –Tara Dilliard
  • Garden Design – “What can I take out and it still holds together?”
    –author unknown
  • “Whether you like things formal or informal, the mind wants organization. And when you create outdoor spaces that have a purpose, you use them.”
    –Mike Eagleton
  • “Edit to enhance, edit, edit, and then edit some more.”
    –author unknown
  • “Design is a key factor in the impression we have of a particular space. The quality of a space is revealed by whether it is used often and with pleasure.”
    –author unknown
  •  “The key is to understand the complexity of simplicity. By saying “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t have that, you can’t have that, but this you can have.” You have to make hard decisions. Sit down and figure out what you want. Train yourself to really see things, to feel, to become intimate with the whole experience of something. In other words, I look at a flowering plant and I think, “I want one of those,” then I look at it more deeply. I find out how it grows, how big it gets, whether I can shape it or whatever, and then I think about whether I can truly make a place for it in my garden.”
    –Ryan Gainey interview with Fine Gardening Magazine
  • “There are many tired gardeners but I’ve seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every gardener believes that next years will be better. It is easy to age when there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, gardeners, however, simply refuse to grow up.”
    –Allan Armitage