Quote of the Day: 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.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
I think of this quote when I visit gardens that were planted and tended many years ago like: Pierre du Pont’s Longwood Gardens, Thomas Jefferson’s gardens at Monticello, and F.A. Seiberling’s Stan Hywet. All of these men had riches and they chose to invest some of those riches in their gardens, which we all can now enjoy. Here are some photos from Stan Hywet in Akron from a couple visits in 2009, if you want to see the slideshow in full screen click on the little icon in the top left corner of the first photo.
[flashgallery folder=”Stan_Hywet”]
I really enjoy going to gardens like this, I’ll never have a grand garden filled with rare plants, but I often find little ideas to incorporate in my own garden. There’s something quite wonderful about visiting an established garden that has been around for a long time.
Do you enjoy visiting botanical and public gardens? What’s your favorite?
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Quote of the Day: Theodore Roethke
“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light”
~ Theodore Roethke
As I look out on the gardens everything is nestled under a insulating blanket of snow. All of the peonies, irises, hydrangeas, hyssop, echinacea and all the other flowers in the garden are quietly waiting for the soil to warm in the spring to start growing and blooming.
Just like gardeners, they need a rest over the winter to produce such beauty during the summer. I thought this quote was perfect for this time of year because no doubt they’re all keeping the light in their roots underneath the snow. I think I’m most excited to see my hydrangeas this coming summer, they’re definitely one of my favorites!
What flower are you most excited about seeing during the next season?
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Long Winter Evenings
“It is most amazing how much literature you can cover during the long winter evenings. We read fairy tales and legends, historical novels and biographies, and the works of the great masters of prose and poetry.”
Maria Augusta Trapp The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
One of the things I do love about winter is that I have time for reading, not as much as I’d like since I’m pretty busy with my day job right now. I’ve always been a bit of a bookworm, and it doesn’t get better as you get older. I have a list a mile long of new books I want to read, and yet I find myself often flipping through old favorites that live on my bookshelf. This time of year I find myself often referencing gardening books while ordering seeds and planning my summer garden.
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, the book quoted from above was one I read in December and I throughout enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful story of a thoughtful life. I also really enjoyed the The River Cottage Cookbook and the The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes both cookbook/stories. I’m now moving on to Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land and a few photography books. I’m always on the lookout for great books to add to my list.
Read anything great lately that you can recommend to us?
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Quote of the Day: Lope de Vega
“With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy.”
Lope de Vega
Gardening really does help cultivate the simple life, at least for me. I don’t think many things ground you as much as growing a few flowers and vegetables in a little bit of soil. I find I’d rather be out in the garden than doing just about anything else. It truly has helped me live without envy, I’m too busy gardening!
What has gardening helped cultivate in your life? patience? happiness? contentment?
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Quote of the Day: John Ruskin
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
I try to savor each kind of weather in it’s season, it is wonderful living in an area with four distinct seasons. At the moment, we’re in winter, and that means snow. I love the snow, if it’s going to be cold I want there to be snow on the ground. I don’t go out and play in it like I did when I was a kid, I can distinctly remember the joy playing in the snow brought . Mr Chiots spent some time out in the snow with our nieces & nephew on Friday and took some photos while he was out.
Kids sure know how to relish the weather, especially snow! I think as an adult I relish rain the most.
What kind of weather do you remember relishing as a kid?
