Robert Louis Stevenson

Today is the birthday of Scottish-born writer and poet Robert Louis Stevenson, who was born on this day in 1850.

Stevenson sickly little boy with no brothers or sisters. When he was just a toddler, a woman named Alison Cunningham was brought into the Stevenson home to help care for Robert. When Stevenson wrote a collection of poems called "A Child's Garden of Verses," he dedicated the book to Alison.
Gardeners will be surprised to learn that Herbert Jekyll and Robert Louis Stevenson were friends.  Herbert was the brother of the  British horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll. Jekyll's last name was used in Stevenson's most famous work Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but of course, the popular pronunciation of the Jekyll name became Jekyll thanks to the book.
It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said,

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant”

And, here's an excerpt from Stevenson's The Gardener

The gardener does not love to talk.
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
He locks the door and takes the key.
Silly gardener! summer goes,
And winter comes with pinching toes,
When in the garden bare and brown
You must lay your barrow down.