I have always felt that the best gardens aspired to coppice and that the best woods have all the elements of the very best gardens.
Monty DonRead
Gardening is inevitably a process of constant, remorseless change. It is the constancy of that process that is so comforting, not any fixed moment.
Interpretation
Gardening involves continuous changes that can be reassuring and comforting.
This quote by Monty Don reflects on the essence of gardening as a dynamic experience that embodies constant change. Rather than seeking a static state of perfection, gardeners find solace in the ongoing transformation of their gardens, understanding that change is a fundamental aspect of growth, beauty, and life itself.
In practice
During a gardening workshop, I shared Monty Don's quote to celebrate the beauty in the evolving nature of plants.
I have always felt that the best gardens aspired to coppice and that the best woods have all the elements of the very best gardens.
I just think that gardening is about the future, a slow thing, that is deep and spiritual as well as spiritually rewarding.
Sweet peas should smell. Half the point of growing sweet peas is to cut them for the house; they should fill a room with an almost painful olfactory inarticulateness. But most sweet peas smell of nothing. This does not stop them being beautiful, but they are like food with no flavour.
I use the period between Christmas and New Year to potter about, think and completely change my mindset. In that easy no-man's-land between Boxing Day and New Year, loins are girded and mettle readied. It is time, as we voyagers bid farewell to the old year, to fare forward.
I am always more interested in people than plants. Nature doesn't make gardens, people make gardens. And the story of a garden is always the story of a person.
I have learnt that gardens are like happiness: you cannot pursue them as an absolute thing or moment.
I urge individuals around the world to stand up, and ask local leaders, if they haven't already, to pledge to purchase cleaner cars, build green facilities, and buy green power like wind or solar energy. Our actions may determine if we become a casualty in the war for a habitable planet for generations to come.
The spacious firmament on high,_x000D_ _x000D_ And all the blue ethereal sky,_x000D_ _x000D_ And spangled heavens, a shining frame,_x000D_ _x000D_ Their great Original proclaim.
I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something very sensuous about it - overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.
When I kayak in Cardigan Bay, in Wales, what I hope to find above all else is dolphins. Sometimes I do, and these days are the waymarks of my life.
There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature...yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are - vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth - and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honor this beauty that owes us nothing.
Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow.
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