Inspiring words get to the root of why she gardens

For years, I've collected garden quotes that I post on the bulletin board at my desk. In idle moments between paragraphs, I like to glance at the board to read a quote or two.

Recently, when I was asked to say a few words about what gardening means to me, I realized that others before me had already expressed it best. So here, from my bulletin board:

I garden because "just living is not enough." That's what the butterfly says in a Hans Christian Anderson tale. "One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower," the butterfly explains.

I garden because there's always one more new plant to try, one more thing to learn. A yellowed clipping I took from Reader's Digest more than 15 years ago contains this quote from JoAnn Barwick: "There's little risk in becoming overly proud of one's garden because gardening by its very nature is humbling. It has a way of keeping you on your knees."

I keep gardening because I'm still trying to get it right: "A real garden where one can enter in and forget the whole world cannot be made in a week or a month or a year," says the Chinese proverb. "It must be planned for, and waited for, and loved into being."

I garden because it makes me happy. A young friend of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell once found the philosopher in a state of profound contemplation. "Why so meditative?" asked the young man. "Because I've made an odd discovery," replied Russell. "Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite."

The late C.Z. Guest, in an essay written on the joys of gardening more than two decades ago, says there are many fabulous things about gardening, and one of the best is that absolutely anyone can do it. Being outside and using your hands to care for plants is also very soothing.

"Best of all," she says, "your garden is never finished. You must tend to it every day. It's like watching your children grow. It will give back to you all the love and care you put into it. Your garden is a good friend -- a true friend. If you help it grow, it will never disappoint you."

In celebration of the joy of gardening, I love this poem by John Greenleaf Whittier:

"Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;

Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall;

Who sows a field, or trains a flower,

Or plants a tree, is more than all."