Loved Archives

Hot July Brings Cooling Showers

by Sara Coleridge Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and gillyflowers. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words of all. Sara Coleridge

You Are a Tulip Seen Today

by Robert Herrick You are a tulip seen today, But (dearest) of so short astay That where you grew, scarce man can say. You are a lovely July-flower, Yet one rude wind, or milling shower. Will force you hence, and in an hour. You are a sparkling rose in the bud. Yet lost ere that…

Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1573

by Thomas Tusser In January, for example, the housewife should be busy planting peas and beans and setting young rose roots. During March and April she will work ‘from morning to night, sowing and setting her garden or plot’, to produce the crops of parsnips, beans, and melons which will ‘winnest the heart of a…

Rustic Garden Projects by Marianne Svärd Häggvik

As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast: Rustic Garden Projects by Marianne Svärd Häggvik This book came out in February of 2019 and the subtitle is: Step-by-Step Backyard Décor from Trellises to Tree Swings, Stone Steps to Stained Glass I tell you what; if you’re bored and looking for something to do in the garden,…

One Fine October Morning

by Anonymous One fine October morning In September, last July The sun lay thick upon the ground The snow shone in the sky The flowers were singing gaily The birds were full in bloom So I went down to the cellar To clean the upstairs room — Anonymous As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words…

Botany

by Berton Braley There should be no monotony In studying your botany; It helps to train And spur the brain– Unless you haven’t gotany. It teaches you, does Botany, To know the plants and spotany, And learn just why They live or die– In case you plant or potany. You learn, from reading…

Once Upon a Windowsill by Tovah Martin

As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast: Once Upon a Windowsill by Tovah Martin This book came out in 1988, and the subtitle is A History of Indoor Plants. This book is an oldie but goodie. Tovah Martin is a fanatical and passionate organic gardener and the author of The Indestructible Houseplant, The Unexpected Houseplant,…

July Folklore

by Anonymous Never trust a July sky. Never trust the sky in the month of July. As July, so next January. If the 1st of July be rainy weather, it will rain more or less for three weeks together. If ant hills are high in July, the coming winter will be hard. Whatever July and…

Weeds by Richard Mabey

As Heard on The Daily Gardener Podcast: Weeds by Richard Mabey This book came out in 2012, and the subtitle isIn Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants. The author Richard Holmes said, “[A] witty and beguiling meditation on weeds and their wily ways….You will never look at a weed, or flourish a garden fork, in…

A July Afternoon by the Pond

by Walt Whitman The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air — the white and pink pond-blossoms, with great heart-shaped leaves; the glassy waters of the creek, the banks, with dense bushery, and the picturesque beeches and shade and turf; the tremulous, reedy call of some bird from recesses, breaking the…

When To Sow

by Vita Sackville-West When skies are gentle, breezes bland. When loam that’s warm within the hand Falls friable between the tines. Sow hollyhocks and columbines. The tufted pansy, and the tall Snapdragon in the broken wall. Not for this summer, but for next. Since foresight is the gardener’s text. And though his eyes may never…

I Love My Garden, And I Love Working In It

by Lucy Maud Montgomery I love my garden, and I love working in it. To potter with green growing things, watching each day to see the dear, new sprouts come up, is like taking a hand in creation, I think. Just now my garden is like faith – the substance of things hoped for. As…

Gardens Are Not Made by Singing

by Rudyard Kipling Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words of all. Rudyard Kipling

Garden Failures

by Eleanor Perenyi It takes a while to grasp that not all failures are self-imposed, the result of ignorance, carelessness or inexperience. It takes a while to grasp that a garden isn’t a testing ground for character and to stop asking, what did I do wrong? Maybe nothing. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words…