Quotes For Gardeners

Culinary Herbs, Spices, Condiments

Quotes ... Links

Compiled by Karen Garofalo

From the Spirit of Gardening Website

'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay trees in our country are all wither'd.
- Shakespeare, King Richard II

Would You Marry Me?
"According to old wives' tales, borage was sometimes
smuggled into the drink of prospective husbands
to give them the courage to propose marriage."
- Mary Campbell, A Basket of Herbs

flow2.gif (27433 bytes)

Upon A Little Hill
Open fresh your round of starry folds,
Ye ardent marigolds!
Dry up the moisture from your golden lids'
For great Apollo bids
That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps which he has lately strung:
And when again your dewiness he kisses
Tell him I have you in my world of blisses!
So haply when I rove in some far vale
His mighty voice may come upon gale.

- John Keats, Tip Toe Upon a Little Hill
Calendulas in old times were pot-marigolds

The olive tree is surely
the richest gift of Heaven.
I can scarcely expect bread.
- Thomas Jefferson

I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, "The master's gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown."
- Chia Tao (777-841)

Vegetables - Quotes for Gardeners

An old Arab riddle goes like this:
Our servant is green.
Her children are born white and then grow black.
Who is she?
An olive tree.

If you set it,
the cats will eat it,
If you sow it,
the cats don't know it.
- Philip Miller, The Gardener's Dictionary
Referring to Catnip

Gardening with herbs, which is becoming increasingly popular, is indulged in by
those who like subtlety in their plants in preference to brilliance.
- Helen Morgenthau Fox

Garlic is as good as ten mothers.

Eat leeks in oile and ramsines in May,
And all the year after physicians may play.
(Ramsines were old-fashioned broad-leafed leeks.)

Teach me whence that wondrous mandrake grows,
Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans,
At midnight hour, can scare the fields away,
And make the mind prolific in its fancies.
- Anonymous
Mandrake is the magic root.

Those herbs which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as
the rest, but, being trodden upon and crushed, are three; that is, burnet,
wild thyme and watermints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of
them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.
- Frances Bacon

As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not
only because my bees love it but because it is the herb
sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a
sprig of it hath a dumb language.
- Sir Thomas More

Flowers - Quotes for Gardeners

As Rosemary is to the Spirit, so Lavender is to the Soul.
- Anonymous

Medicinal Herbs and Drugs

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
pray, love, remember; and there is pansies,
that's for thoughts.
- Shakespeare, Hamlet

Lift up your boughs of Vervain blue,
Dip't in cold September dew;
And dash the moisture, chaste and clear
O'er the ground and through the air.
- Mason
Referring to Vervain

As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and
refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.
- Pliny the Elder

Salt's a friend to the tomato.
- Ray Pannesi

The History of Gardening: A Timeline from
Ancient Times to the 20th Century

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun,
and with him rise weeping.
- Shakespeare, Winter's Tale

I myself have seen the ungodly in great power:
and flourishing like a green bay-tree.
- The Prayer Book 1662

How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?
- Andrew Marvel

And she forgot the stars, the moon, the sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells,where waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when day was done,
And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore .....
'For cruel 'tis,' said she,
'To steal my Basil-pot away from me.'
- John Keats

Quotes for Gardeners

Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes Arranged by Over 130 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

How I would love to be transported into a scented
Elizabethan garden with herbs
and honeysuckles, a knot garden and roses
clambering over a simple arbor ....
- Rosemary Verey

There's fennel for you, and columbines; there's rue
for you: and here's some for me; we may call it herb
of grace o' Sundays. O! you must wear your rue with a
difference. There's a daisy; I would give you some violets,
but they withered all when my ather died.
- Shakespeare, Hamlet

I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to
know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly
branchlets through one's hand, and have the enjoyment of
their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so
that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness
to greet me as I pass ....
- Gertrude Jekyll

With holly and ivy,
So green and so gay,
We deck up our houses
As fresh as the day,
With bays, and rosemary,
And laurel complete;
And every one now
Is a king in conceit.
Poor Robins Almanac, 1695

Links and References

Herbs, Spices

Alchemy Works Seeds and Herbs

Algy's Herb Page

alt.folklore.herbs

Asian Herbs

Breyd's Oregon Garden

Chile-Heads Homepage

Cooking With Herbs: 100 Seasonal Recipes and Herbal Mixtures to Spice Up Any
Meal. By Tina James. Rodale Press, 1999. 156 pages. Rodale's Essential Herbal
Handbooks. ISBN: 0875968295.

The Cook's Garden

Culinary Herb FAQ

Flavoring the World: The FAQ about Spices

Forget Me Not Herbs and Wildflowers

Garlic Information Centre

Garlic Lovers' Cookbook. By The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association. 1980.
Celestial Arts. ISBN 0890872724. Great recipes. A personal favorite!

Garlic Page

The Garlic Web Site Lot's of garlic history, recipes and facts.

GILBOA, Beit-Hashita Olives Great olive information, types, flavors, etc.

Gothic Gardening

Green Wizard

Forget-Me-Not Herbs and Wildflowers

Henriettes Herbal Homepage Nice collection of FAQs, newsgroup and maillist archives,
and plant name database. Excellent collection of useful information.

Herb of the Month

Herbage Database A searchable database from the CRC Ethnobotany Desk Reference Book.

Herbs and Spices - Yahoo Index

Herbs for Health - Juli Kight

Illustrated Encylcopedia of Herbs. By Rodale Press. St. Martin's Press, 1987.
ISBN: 0878576991.

Jeanne Rose's Herbal Guide to Food. By Jeanne Rose. North Atlantic Books,
1979. ISBN 1556430566.

Lee's Geo Brink

A Modern Herbal. The Medical, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation,
and Folklore of Herbs, Grasses, Fungi, Shrubs and Trees with All Their Modern Scientific Uses.
By Mrs. M. Grieve. New York, Dorset Press, 1992, 1931. Index, 912 pages. ISBN: 0880299215.

Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve Botanical.Com 800 varieties of herbs and plants.

A Modern Herbal A Index to Herbal Recipes

No Tyme Productions Useful information on a variety of herbs, Latin terms, and many nice products: herbs, good books, pots, etc..

Mostly Garlic Magazine

Oregon Coast Wild Mushrooms

Pitting Olives Without Frustration

Reference Guide for Herbs

Richter's Herbs

Shepherd's Garden Seeds

The Spirit of Gardening

Silver Sage

Traute's Herbalism Links Page

Your Garlic Encyclopedia