One Liners, Quips, Observations, Philosophy, Whimsy, Punch Lines
Humorous Exaggerations, Perverse Reflections, Aphorisms, Advice
Odd Definitions, Jokes, Sayings,
Thoughts, Satirical Theorems
By
Mike Garofalo pulling onions in May 2007.
March 17, 2008
Copyright © 2008 by Green Way
Research
All rights reserved by Michael P. Garofalo
Published on the Internet since 2001.
This webpage is served to over 850 people each month.
1. Gardens are demanding pets.
2. Time is something everyone runs short on and finally runs out of.
3. An important gardening judgment - When to Do Nothing!
4. Remember that gophers also need to make a living; preferably in somebody else's garden.
5. A garden is made up of stories, not things.
6. You are given Today - make it matter.
7. A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb.
8. To garden is the reward.
9. Absolutes squirm beneath realities.
10. Your garden will do for you in proportion to what you do for it.
11. More greenery here does not diminish greenery elsewhere.
12. Going half-way, half-heartedly, will give less than a quarter of the satisfaction.
13. Location, location, location .... is also true for plants.
14. To garden is to open your heart to the sky.
15. Your greatest discoveries in the yard often come by accident.
16. Never underestimate the power of those that like things neat and tidy.
17. A garden is something that should not have been.
18. The Uhr Spell is "Abundant Fertility."
19. Complexity is closer to the Truth.
20. When the hoe handle is loose, you will have misplaced the steel wedges.
Onion Garden
A Concrete Poem by Michael P. Garofalo
21. Not to move either hand, nor clap, nor think too much are all good for zen gardening.
22. Wishes are like seeds, few ever develop into something.
23. We did not come from dust, nor shall we return to dust, nor are we dust in the wind.
24. The empty garden is already full.
25. Keep one corner of the garden for explorations beyond the ordinary.
26. As you move your hands so you move your mind.
27. If you need five tools to solve a problem in the garden, four of them will be easy to find.
28. Dearly respect the lifestyle of worms.
29. Some pleasures lick, chew, savor and swallow us.
30. Valuable gardening vocabulary includes: ))*!¢¢%@!+!*#@%#!+??**¢¢!!!
31. Watering is the practice of gentleness.
32. The luckiest gardeners are often the hardest working and most prepared gardeners.
33. There is not much to say about the "Unknown."
34. All the living stand on the dead.
35. Like a garden, the room for self-improvement grows larger each year.
Quotes for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 135 Topics
Over 7 Megabytes
of Text
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
36. The garden, like the labyrinth, requires a going in and a coming out.
37. The love of gardening may blind you to the beauty of the garden.
38. The ground is muddiest after you have just polished your boots.
39. Our eyes are bigger than our gardens, and certainly bigger than our budgets.
40. Gardeners are divided into those that think others are doing it wrong.
41. Always leave extra time for unraveling the hose.
42. When all the chores are done, the avid gardener will invent some new ones.
43. The exceptional weather will always come right after you put the seedlings out.
44. A gardener can be sure he will always grow tired.
45. Never just One: fruit, a hoe, the moving Sun.
Flowers - Quotes for Gardeners
46. Honor the dead by showing compassion for the living.
47. Gardening often straightens the body and aligns the spirit.
48. When the Divine knocks, don't send a prophet to the door.
49. Sitting in a garden and doing nothing is high art everywhere.
50. Round things are very nice - raindrops, fruit, women, the earth.
51. The lawn mower will mulch and pull itself along - when it starts.
52. The garden did as gardens do - without sentimentality.
53. A garden recreates itself daily; we seldom step in the same garden thrice.
54. Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise.
55. Graveyards and landscape gardens, coffins and flowers - fitting friends.
56. We are essentially water, vegetables, fruits, roots, nuts and grains.
57. Our gardens, like ourselves, are mostly a memory.
58. The sparkplug always wiggles its way out of place.
59. Gardeners turn into the soil their lifetime.
60. A garden speaks no language, yet many gardeners still listen.
Michael P. Garofalo
September 2004
Summer Harvest
61. The end of the garden is at the end of the hose.
62. The grandest view from the garden is the open sky.
63. Weeding one part of the garden creates a compost pile in another.
63. When the sun hat fits, it's ugly.
65. Learning how to garden is learning how to slow down.
Jokes, Puns, Riddles, One-Liners and Humor for Gardeners and Farmers
66. Gardens mean "Enclosures for keeping others out."
67. Greed, theft and exploitation are the foundation of many a grand landscape garden.
68. Those that sweat the most in creating a grand garden are most often forgotten.
69. Garden history is too often a reflection of our ignorance and biases.
70. The Liberty Tree flourishes when we
cultivate fairness, generosity, curosity,
tolerance, industry, courage,
and respect. .
Pulling Onions by J. D. Massie, Oil on Canvas
71. Knowing what not to do this month in the garden is useful information.
72. Horticultural arts and sciences are flourishing worldwide, and have very deep tap roots in antiquity.
73. Time may wait for no man, but seems to muddle and poke along quite slowly for gardeners.
74. Only two percent of all insects are harmful. Why are they all in my garden?
75. Different places, different advice.
The History of Gardening: A Timeline From Ancient Times to 2000
76. Gardening is sometimes superior to just sitting on your butt.
77. Old gardeners do die, and plenty are slowly spading away.
78. Gardening is the root of the village; and, the oldest occupation of both women and men.
79. The Ruler of the Garden is most often a woman.
80. Plants from China and the Americas revolutionized modern European agriculture and horticulture.
81. Manure and wood ashes settled villages.
82. Digging, dunging, mounding, mulching, seeding, watering, weeding ... over and over and over!
83. The telephone always rings when your at the far side of the garden.
84. A single robin hunting on the ground - and sometimes a worm squirms away.
85. "One year's seeding makes seven years' weeding." Weeder's Advice
86. The settled and peaceful society are the foundation of ornamental horticulture.
87. We may love our garden and yet be a danger to it.
88. A garden is better than a mirror for revealing yourself.
89. Praise is a kind of Miracle Grow, a manure, a growth hormone.
90. Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature? Whack!!
91. "Wisdom is often nearer when we stoop than when we soar." Wordsworth's Insight
92. Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener Her slave. [Pillow Talk?]
93. Gardening dissolves mental chatter in the sweat of bodily effort.
94. For most spiritual exercises the first lesson is the most important.
95. "There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments." - Phillip's Rule
96. Patience in gardening is a necessity, hardly a virtue.
97. Some gardeners don't grow old and stop playing; they stop playing and grow old.
98. Little problems have easy solutions; for big problems it's probably too late.
99. "I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself." - Smither's Brown Thumb Dictum
100. Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and
all Seasons for dying.
Quotes for Gardeners
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes,
Arranged by 135 Topics
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Clichés, Adages,
Wisdom
Over 7MB of Text
Many of the Topics Include a Reading List and Internet Links
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
101. The living produce the living, the dead decay into compost.
102. Why is it that you can find four gloves for the left hand, and none for the right?
103. "Other people's tools work only in other people's gardens." Bloch's First Law of Gardening
104. What goes down usually comes up.
105. The more I study nature, the less I admire the Creator.
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Garden Reflections, Quotations, Aphorisms, Wisdom, Sayings
106. Tooth and nail, and the stench of a dead animal on the wind.
107. How can gardening be considered a "leisure time" activity?
108. "A postulate is a principle which admission is necessary to establish a later demonstration."
109. Your garden and you will all die, so celebrate and smell the evergreens today.
110. When the oak you planted pushes out the undergrowth, the worms will have pushed you away.
Do You Want to Read this Document in Another Language?
111. Diversity, multiplicity, relations, combinations, mixtures, complexity - rarely just one process or one thing.
112. What you need the least you will have lots of, and what you need the most will be missing.
113. Even the Devil wants a grand landscape garden near his comfortable castle.
114. Goodness casts a dark shadow.
115. Gardeners at
War with Mother Nature. Let the Battle Begin!
115a. Abandon your post, and Nature will sneak in and steal you blind.
115b. "Defiance is what makes gardeners." Henry Mitchell
115c. Gardeners had better
be ready to see the ugly, the deformed, the grotesque,
the dying and the dead.
115d. I'm dirty, tired, sore, and my face is red; and, every damn weed in that garden is dead.
115e. When you can't fight
on and drop to die; your just a big tasty feast for the crows,
ants, buzzards and flies.
115f. "Gardening is more or less a warfare against nature." James Shirley Hibberd
115g. Nature is very tricky, so you must be clever or you will loose.
115h. Observe the enemy, learn, discern Her principles of action, imitate Her, then go beyond Her.
115i. "One season of natural free-for-all took me from organic pacifism to biological war." Patti Hagan
115j. While digging, dozens of worms were sliced down - victims of friendly fire.
115k. Snail - Squash! Tomato Worm - Squash! Grasshopper - Squash! The Garden Trooper is at War!
115l. "I rose
as one in a trance, picked up my gun, stepped to the petunia bed and
shot the pig dead where he fed."
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
115m. Jackrabbits! Elmer Fudd was correct - get your dogs, traps, and shotgun.
115n. "If you are not killing plants, you are not really stretching yourself as a gardener." J. C. Raulston
115o. Soaps, malathion, diazinon, baits, oils ... land mines and poison warfare!
115p. We hurt and destroy ourselves as we destroy them - such is the nature of the Gardening War.
115q. A nine foot high fence with barbs? A deer defense system.
115r. If dogs and cats craved raw vegetables, they would have never become pets.
115s. I have never met a grasshopper I didn't dislike.
115t. I'm an organic gardener - I use organic methods to kill the damn mooching pests.
115u. To the compost pile - we take No prisoners!
115v. Roundup the Unwanted for the Week of Dying.
115w. Why do we think that Owls are Wise? They eat gophers.
115x. "Chopped off heads fly up, bodies sliced to tiny bits; die dandelions." Paul Brown
115y. Your Observations about the Gardener's War
Quotes for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 135 Topics
Over 7 Megabytes
of Text
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
116. All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy - and pain in the neck for others.
117. When you decide to do something first in the garden, you'll get distracted.
118. The attentive gardener is not so often lost in thought.
119. Making simple matters complex or complex matters simple are both bad gardening techniques.
120. Is the oak tree in the courtyard of your life flourishing? Gardening and Spirituality
Short Poems and Haiku by Michael P. Garofalo
121. Weeds multiply in direct proportion to your efforts to eliminate them.
122. High winds suddenly arise just after you've planted 5 gallon trees.
123. A hose is your most important gardening tool in California.
124. Special visitors will arrive in your cherished garden just as the hard rain begins to fall.
125. The mower will run out of gas at the farthest point from the work shed.
126. Weed when wet - weeds thrive; weed when dry - weeds die.
127. Everything returns to the One. What does the One return to? One what??
128. The only Zen you'll find flowering in the garden is the Zen you bring there each day.
129. A gardener discovers both what's new and something ancient.
130. One popular garden crop is poetry.
131. The Mr. and Mrs. Aphids, The Borers, Ms. and Sir
Wasp, The Worms
and The Ants all live around here.
132. "Thinly sliced cabbage." Cole's Law
133. Gardening teaches many lessons, and the good news is we remember a few.
134. Nothing grows in Hell.
135. The fountains, pools and streams in Shangri-La are ever full and never polluted.
136. We already live in the Garden of Eden, but we now have to work to keep it growing.
137. Remember that the River of Forgetfulness flows by the Elysian Fields.
138. Paradise and shade are close relatives on a summer day.
139. The Thirst is so great that many visualize Heaven as being in the Midst of Clouds.
140. July Into August - Sweating It Out
140a. Ah ... the warm smell of wet earth floating over the windswept waves of Rice.
140b. The steady buzzzzzzz of the Katydid chorus, and the bass solo of the croaking Frog - a summer night's serenade.
140c. "Leaves of Grass" Some fruits of Walt Whitman's spirit. Walt, ... thanks, thanks, thanks!
140d. Ripening grapes in the summer sun - reason enough to plod ahead.
140e. We paused, refreshed, as the sun hid behind the swirl of thunderclouds.
140f. Almonds, Walnuts, Cattle - oblivious to their end ahead.
140g. Sunset!! The mosquitoes attack - we retreat.
141h. Also true: a crape myrtle is a crape myrtle is a crape myrtle.
141i. Speechless - we watch the shooting stars on parade.
141j. Summer: dry brown grass and green leafed cottonwoods; Winter: vice versa.
141k. Where are the fig blossoms? Exceptions to every rule.
141l. Read some haiku poetry with a summertime kigo!
141m. The spiders, grasshoppers, mantis, and moth larva are all back: the summer crowd has returned!
141. As with most arts, gardening is an expression of our hands.
142. Put the right plant in the right place at the right time in the right way - and you won't go wrong.
143. "In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty." Imbesi's Conservation of Filth Law
144. We may share a garden with the World, or destroy one.
145. Gardening revives the instincts we share with our peasant ancestors.
146. Autumn: the reprieve from Summer.
147. Adversity seldom makes plants stronger or roots deeper - it usually stunts or kills them.
148. All beautiful things disappear, and Beauty is the memory of ideas.
149. God may have created the first garden, but,
typical of Him, He got bored with trying
to keep it up and make it better.
150. Better to wear out than to burn out; rusting away is OK.
151. Left to themselves, weeds tend to go from there to everywhere.
152. Mamma Egret and Kids, The Magpie Team, Mr. and
Mrs. Sparrow,
and The Finches all live around here.
153. Four steps to gardening success: First, Do This; Second, Do That; Third, Water; Fourth, Wait.
154. Simplifying our
relations to things sometimes allows us to live more complex intellectual
and emotional
lives.
155. Sometimes our painful work, intellectual and
emotional lives lead us to the simple
comfort of things, e.g., gardens.
Clichés Used by Gardeners and Farmers
156. Simplifying and simplicity are never simple matters.
157. "There's always a kink when your getting a drink." Karen Garofalo's Tangled Hose-isms
158. Most gardeners have a touch of the obsessive-compulsive-manic in their Muse.
159. To dig is to discover.
160. Gardening is a Performance Art: showing off, living out loud, getting down, making a statement.
161. The oak and bindweed grow in the same soil; seeds
and scissors go
back into the same shed.
162. Very little is "must do"; much more is "permitted."
163. Gardens mirror the extravagance, lavishness, and
excesses of
Mother Nature's busiest offspring: Mankind.
164. Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn
into firewood - on the
chopping block of time.
165. "In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it." Hubbard's Rule
Seasons - Quotes for Gardeners
166. You are deluding yourself if you think that death is an illusion.
167. Weed, prune, cull, cut down - make room for new growth and new plants
168. It is often surprising that many of the plants actually thrive.
169. We garden day by day, bit by bit, breath by breath - our slices of enlightenment.
170. Gardeners, mostly parents, love to be in control.
171. Chrysanthemums in bloom over a carpet of dry leaves - the contrasts and pathos of beauty.
172. Fruits, nuts, grains ... sex and food. Flowers ... sex and beauty.
173. If it were not for the sex life of plants, we would have no sex life of our own.
174. Just the right words can be worth more than a thousand pictures.
175. Your hand hoe will always find its way to the bottom of the weeding barrel.
176. When supermarket prices for tomatoes are the lowest, your tomato crop will be at its peak.
177. There is nothing behind the facts; but, we love to imagine creating something out of nothing.
178. The particulars, minute particulars, revealing Nothing.
179. If at first you don't succeed, don't quit yet.
180. Preaching the Laws incessantly - the Suchness of Things. [A hearty gassho to R.H. Blyth and D.T. Suzuki.]
181. Gardens spend more than they earn.
182. We may play with and pass on a garden, possessing one is an illusion.
183. Likes and dislikes are part of gardening, but must not be a burden.
184. Agi quod agis: Do what you are doing.
185. The Big Valley of California - America's Kitchen Garden and Orchard.
186. I once read about the dangers of gardening; so I quit reading for two weeks.
187. The gardener stands between Heaven and
Earth, the Boundless and the
Bordered; a minor god with dirty feet.
188. "Wow! Show me How!" is the birth cry of a gardener.
189. The toil and sweat open ourselves to fruitful possibilities.
190. Work - the activity that interferes with gardening.
191. The garden grew the home.
192. The first gardeners liked staying close to home,
and preferred
beans and bread over venison.
193. Gardeners like to make Mother Nature obey.
194. In gardening, we love possibilities as much or more than actualities.
195. A garden flourishes in the mind's time of last season, next season, and now.
196. Everyone believes they can be a good gardener, and some become one.
197. When gardening, you can merely count the passing days, or you can make each day count.
198. "Nature soon takes over if the gardener is absent." Hobhouse's Rule
199. Civilization is rooted in the hands of the gardeners.
200. Mother Nature is always pregnant.
Onions, An Illustration by Ken Perkins
201. It takes four seasons to know one year.
202. One spring and one summer to know life's hope; one autumn and one winter to know life's fate.
203. What is a garden that a person may know one; and what is a person that may know a garden?
204. Some flourish when crowded, others don't.
205. "Life begins the day you start a garden." Chinese Proverb
Religion - Quotes for Gardeners
206. Squash squashing, rhubarb rhubarbing; gardeners
gardening, Taoists Taoing.
207. "Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first." Murphy's Law #12
208. By the garden one knows the gardener's work.
209. Seventy days for wasps, seventy winters for humans; so, quit complaining and garden.
210. Starting a new garden, enjoying an old garden - both gardening
Slogans, Sayings, Quips, One-Liners,
Signs, Bumper Stickers
For Gardeners
211. The main impediment to true and vivid perception is daydreaming about oneself..
212. Look at the soil, feel the soil, smell the soil: The Beginning!
213. The meaning is lost in the saying - a nature mystic's dilemma.
214. Bless the Farm! Bless the Market! Bless the Kitchen!
215. "A garden is always on the move." Mirabel Osler
216. Repetition and diversification are Nature's formulas.
217. Prepare for new growth - cut above the bud.
218. You can sometimes get a handle on life, but it often breaks.
219. It's best if you work at one end of the garden, while your wife works on the opposite side.
220. Endings for one are beginnings for another.
221. The wise gardener knows when to stop.
222. Gardeners must dance with feedback, play with results, turn as they learn.
223. Where are those damn gloves?
224. Gardening increases the chances that we might actually talk with our neighbors.
225. Act on it: garden to Garden.
226. A walk in the garden is the best tonic for rejuvenation.
227. Exploring one's backyard might be more refreshing than a trip to the Big Apple.
228. The sun does not shine equally on all yards.
229. Nature's playfulness is a gardener's delight.
230. Gardening forces the impatient to wait.
Awards and Reviews for this Website
231. Thinking twenty years ahead in your landscape design is less important when your sixty.
232. Gardening requires no commuting time.
233. Planting bare-root trees is a paradigm case of optimism.
234. Your guilt increases as you look at the price of a quart of Round Up.
235. Pulling weeds can also clear the mind.
Cuttings - Short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo
236. My garden is unique, just like everyone else's.
237. Gardening work manifests the organization of our brains; and, in turn, gardening organizes our brains.
238. The depth of our being is often unknown until we are uprooted.
239. "A flower is the epitaph of a seedling, and vice versa." Rein's Ruminations
240. I'm on a 90 Day Wonder Diet. Thus far, I've lost 45 days.
241. A flower needs roots; beauty of society of minds.
242. The mindful gardener will hear less subconscious gossip.
243. Today, in your garden: just sit, just watch, just listen, just wait.
244. "Gardening is complicated, and prejudice simplifies it enormously." Allen Lacy
245. In the morning light, many gardens are enlivened by the Faeries of Perfection.
246. Accurate observation is the father of good thinking.
247. Always make explicit the costs of success.
248. Don't fuss over the grass and it dies, fuss over the grass and it gets sick.
249. Weeding uproots the lives of insects.
250. Becoming invisible to oneself is one pure act of gardening.
Spirituality - Quotes for Gardeners
251. The mysterious and fleeting appearances in a garden provide abiding charms for the melancholy soul.
252. It is the ordinary commonplaceness of gardening that strikes so many chords of pleasure.
253. The garden, orchard, and woodlot are all places to help us warm up.
254. We struggle with death in the garden, clearing it away, covering it under; dancing with life's ascension.
255. Priapus, lively and naughty, aroused and outlandish, is the Duende de el Jardin.
256. Inside the gardener is the spirit of the garden outside.
257. The first taste of emptiness satisfies; thereafter, we find plants to tend.
258. Is there any garden string that is untangled? No!
259. How crude! How vulgar! How undignified! The gardener calmly smiles.
260. "Poet: gardener of epitaphs." Octavio Paz
Vegetables - Quotes for Gardeners
261. You know you have gardened too much when:
261a. All your fingernails are dirty, and both thumbs are green.
261b. The smell of manure awakens your senses.
261c. You have nightmares about failed cuttings, transplants that grew up, and abandoned garden goals.
261d. Even the King birds don't buzz your head.
261e. You have more fresh vegetables than the Brady Bunch or Walton Clan could eat in a week.
261f. You mumble around your vegetables, and believe the garden speaks to you.
261g. You chuckle at inane garden jokes and your "sense of humus" is thick.
261h. Diversity is an obsession, and garden catalog purchases are a monthly compulsion.
261i. You have held every gardening book and magazine at your local bookstore and public library.
261j. Composting and watering are rituals.
261k. The garden speaks to you and you take notes.
261l. You decide to create gardening webpages.
261m. As soon as your head touches the pillow, you instantly dive into a deep sleep.
261n. Your doctor tells you that you have Weeder's Elbow along with Spader's Back.
262. Sturdy boots and a hard-nosed spirit are safety gear for the gardener.
263. The desert garden spoke in a sandy dry dialect, and my understanding of it grew slowly.
264. Is the essential being of a tree a wave or matter, or a matter of waving.
265. Tending a garden helps in mending the body.
Haiku Poetry - Links, References and Resources
266. Beware! Gardening can become a collecting addiction.
267. To garden in the rain: irresistible fragrances and fresh air.
268. Even the fruitless will sometimes flower.
269. It's what you do tomorrow that makes a difference.
270. The flower of desire blooms on the barest branch; but only the branch with working leaves can mature the fruit.
271. The unexpected - a secluded fountain of delight.
272. Enhance your garden experience by sharing with others.
273. Sound ideas and a vivid imagination are crucial gardening tools.
274. Good gardeners find uses for just about everything.
275. Gardening failures may teach.
The Heart and Soul of Gardening - Great Reading
276. Macroclimates dictate the rules of the gardening game, microclimates allow for a few finesse plays.
277. How much rain and when are the fundamental questions.
278. You will always have five too many or one too few of the PVC couplings you need.
279. Gardening is a physical and psychological investment in This Place.
280. Many garden plants are tamed creatures and need our frequent attention.
Mike Garofalo pulling onions in May 2007.
281. The oak does not know that we call it a Quercus.
282. A gardener loves the rain; also, for the resting time it brings.
283. Sometimes the real value of a garden is determined by what it does not contain.
284. All outdoor gardeners organize their work by the months and seasons.
285. If gardening is a genuine art, then it will point the way to the good and humane life.
286. To move is to be alive; gardening work validates our vitality.
287. Gardening can sometimes restore and polish our character.
288. Say a prayer for a good harvest; but don't forget to weed and water.
289. To lift the mind, move the body.
290. Gardening has nurtured many marriages.
291. Once we stop looking we often see It right away.
292. Knee: a device for finding rocks in your garden.
293. A new garden becomes an unruly green gang in seven years.
294. Gardening emphasizes practices over beliefs; fundamentally, its practices are its beliefs.
295. Celebrate Today - garden and be thankful.
Simplicity - Quotes for Gardeners
296. Gardening is a kind of deadheading - keeping us from going to seed.
297. The scum of the earth comes in many colors.
298. Even the clumsy, weak and slow can win at the gardening game.
299. Gardeners are students of the Master, Nature.
300. The garden is the temple, and gardening the retreat.
301. Gardens for the eyes; gardening for the hands.
302. When gardening, half an hour is fifty minutes.
303. Increased work will not substitute for decreased watering.
304. Plants favor sunshine, we thrive in the shade.
305. Lawnmower: a magic wand for making teenagers disappear.
The Green Way Blog by Mike Garofalo
306. In the right place at the right time, tomato worms on tomato vines.
307. With every shovel full of mind muck removed, the well of understanding grows deeper.
308. Some degree of dissatisfaction spurs on every gardener.
309. Gardening is not a campaign issue - thankfully.
310. Green Living is a political issue.
311. Each day, every gardener needs to rest.
312. The eyes of a gardener are usually bigger than her hands.
313. A gardener that tries to live on his words alone will have to eat them.
314. Gardening helps us to carefully attend to the close at hand.
315. The joyful gardener is evidence of an incarnation.
Weeds and Weeding - Quotes for Gardeners
316. Chop the weeds and hose the water ... the sounds of two hands clapping - with delight.
317. Conclusions about your garden are really conclusions about yourself.
318. Those who can sit quietly in their garden are rewarded in ten thousand ways.
319. Some gardeners joyfully slip over the edge of sobriety and become plantaholics.
320. Some dying plants or other mementos of mortality give a garden a richer palette of meaning.
321. My gardening theories are a bit crazy, but are they crazy enough?
322. Enamored of these flowers, certainly - butterflies, bees and me.
323. Gardens hide what gardeners delight in discovering.
324. Everything gives birth to something.
325. The wise gardener grows happiness under his feet.
326. What can happen to a seed is a kind of miracle.
327. For Eastern Americans, gardening is the art of weeding; for Westerners, gardening is the art of watering.
328. Your wet and smelly dog always likes to cozy up real close while you are weeding.
329. A modest gardener is a powerful force.
330. Shade was the first shelter.
331. Vigorous gardening might help more than a psychiatrist's couch.
332. Your pocket knife will be its dullest at just the right time.
333. A gardener is not a plant - or is she?
334. A garden is the expression of a gardener's unique interaction with the World.
335. "My garden" has as many meanings as there are gardeners.
Quotes for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 3,300 Quotes, Arranged by 135 Topics
Over 7 Megabytes
of Text
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
336. When pruning, just prune; when weeding, just weed. Don't be elsewhere.
337. The best thing that grows in the garden is a careful gardener.
338. Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday.
339. Autumn Yellow, the reverse of Spring Green.
340. If weeds did not triumph in the end, we would be in trouble.
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Months
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| January | April | July | October |
| February | May | August | November |
| March | June | September | December |
341. When gardening, the ordinary can become the extraordinary.
342. Happiness often creeps up on you unexpectedly while you are working diligently in the garden.
343. The form of a garden is the extension of its contents.
344. Gardening is the right sport for a lifetime of pleasures.
345. When it is time to water, be grateful for the water.
346. Leaves are sunlight, bound by water, shaped by invisible rules.
347. We also grew up in a womb of water.
348. When a gardener becomes a gardener, Zen becomes Zen.
349. Rolling up your sleeves and working in the garden is saying "yes" to life.
350. Gardening sometimes serves no practical purpose - it is playing.
351. Some plants thrive when neglected - like crabgrass in the cracks of sidewalks.
352. Gardeners come to know themselves when they act.
353. Everyone has a favorite plant - ask "Why?"
354. Weed out your imperfections and craziness to harvest the boring and bland.
355. Does your garden belong to you or to public opinion?
356. When gardening becomes drudgery - Stop!
357. Gardening sometimes takes a few hours of a day, but adds weeks of pleasure to your life.
358. Gratefully, shit happens!
359. Leave one corner of your garden untouched, chaotic, free; and, you will reap insights.
360. The function a garden serves will lead to its form.
361. We play the garden game, and sometimes the garden game plays us.
362. Gardens nurture new and more complex forms of life; including their gardeners.
363. Seven steps forward and six steps back - the Earth remains.
364. Relax and be still around the bees.
365. Creative gardening introduces random acts of divergence.
366. To garden is one way to become a decent man.
367. Go ahead, gardeners, make some mistakes, and please do so with enthusiasm.
368. Trying to make some plants flourish is a death sentence.
369. The art of gardening is one tool for expanding consciousness.
370. The time you have wasted on your garden is what makes it priceless.
The History of Gardening Timeline
371. To be free to garden is fine, but to become free to garden is better.
372. Observing your sensations while you garden often stills the dancing mind.
373. Creativity in gardening is often spurred on by destructive impulses.
374. Flowers do not grow on the map of your garden.
375. It is harder for the gardener to let go of old ideas that worked, than to come up with new ideas.
376. A garden is a sporting field, an area for play.
377. Your garden is a portrait of yourself.
378. The joy of gardening is often discovered when you are not gardening.
379. Your rich, famous, and handsome; and, your garden doesn't care.
380. Deadlines are sure to inspire the gardener.
381. Not talking and not thinking awaken the fullness of the five senses.
382. The greatest temptation of beauty is replication.
383. The meaning of "a beautiful garden" depends greatly on our meaning of "garden."
384. When your garden continues to amaze you, you have awakened.
385. The most startling message of gardening is "silence."
The Green Way Blog by Mike Garofalo
386. Leafing is the Practice of seeds.
387. When watering, just water; be aware that watering is taking place. Allow yourself to enjoy just watering,
388. Optimists smell the flowers and look for a wedding; pessimists look for a casket.
389. Many pursue happiness, gardeners create it.
390. Beauty hides between the pauses.
391. Getting down and dirty - gardeners like to do it.
392. Learning to think as a gardener is inseparable from the acts of gardening.
393. One of the best parts of happiness is the garden.
394. Gardening forces you to slow down and savor contemplation.
395. Gardening tempts you to look, again and again, until the novel is seen.
396. Gardening is but one war against Chaos.
397. One purpose of a garden is to stop time.
398. Gardening is a form of moving meditation.
399. Gardening is a natural sacrament.
400. Gardens, orchards, and farms cause many species to become extinct.
401. Gardening is like sex: we sometime produce fine gardens, but we mostly do it for other reasons.
402. Planting a tree may be an act of piety.
403. Be sure you don't cause long term breakdowns by short term fixes.
404. A garden is a token of craftsmanship and beauty in all kinds of lives.
405. A gardener keeps nature in line, in control, under his thumb; otherwise fecund ugliness reigns.
406. A garden does not occur in nature - that is its beauty.
407. Pause every so often when gardening to celebrate your breathing.
408. Gardening gets you into the flow of enjoyment.
409. Look where you slipped, not where you fell.
410. Beginning anywhere in the garden, you'll likely end up reflecting on everything.
411. Sometimes we can't see the garden because we are staring at the plants.
412. Days in the garden fade from memory, but some Moments are never forgotten.
413. Annuals disappear, shrubs perish, trees die, and gardeners are buried; death is the flower of time.
414. A plateful of vegetables makes more sense than the Absolute.
415. In an instant there is nothing - Nature needs time.
416. The difference between a pile of rocks and a rock garden - the eyes and hands of the gardener.
417. By the time you peel off five layers of reality, it's hard to recall the first.
418. A garden tells a story about its maker.
419. Time is rooted in Place.
420. A home and garden are the embodiment of Place.
421. The usefulness of the garden is found in delight, discovery, and the color green.
422. Failing to plan is often a surefire plan for failure.
423. Failure is part of the cost of experimental gardening.
424. Good fences make good gardens.
425. Gardening endures because it appeals to people of all ages.
426. It's a long time between my garden and the Pacific Ocean.
427. Our gardens assert our place, our presence, our being-in-this-world.
428. Time will tell, but we often fail to listen.
429. Stepping into a backyard garden can be a pilgrimage to the "Holy Land."
430. The "eternal truths" are sometimes clearly false.
431. Pulling onions - the sweet smell begins to stink.
432. Seeing with one eye and feeling with the other does help bring things into focus.
433. Everyday, the Angel of Death visits the garden - someday too I will touch Her wing. .
434. Being dead means nothing to the dead.
435. Thinking about gardening is grounded in movement. .
436. Truth is evasive; freedom is more appealing.
437. The size of one's garden can be estimated by the thickness of one's wallet.
438. "Trivial matters are handled promptly;
important
matters are never resolved." Gresham's Law
439. The happiest gardeners have simply learned how to relax.
440. The most worthwhile things often cannot be fully explained.
441. Cussing and crabbing relieve the boredom of gardening.
442. A garden is quite comfortable with immorality and evil.
443. "Dung Ho!" - Swain's Battle Cry
444. Just gardening is an antidote to a racing mind.
445. The playful gardener often taps into a deep source of wholesome freedom.
446. Hunger, work, food, satisfaction: the kitchen garden cycle.
447. The Master of Gardening knows how to go slowly.
448. Just the ordinary is often quite extraordinary.
449. The simplest garden is never simple.
450. The garden, like life, is a mixture of
sand and sugar; yet, even the humble ant
has the skill to
separate the two.
451. The root illusion is a belief in that which does not change. Comments
452. Just garden - some of the results will be none of your business.
453. Many love to garden, some only love gardens - the garden is large enough for both.
454. For a gardener, all gardens can be improved.
455. Gardening boils down to doing and seeing for yourself.
456. Gardening is a passion to continue, despite failure and uncertainty.
457. In labors of love, the love seems to make the sense of labor disappear.
458. Gardening translates informed plans into experiences.
459. A garden: one picture from an epic movie.
460. Gardening is the yoga of work and play.
461. Each time we water can be like the first time if we are fully present in the moment.
462. "To garden is to let optimism to get the better of judgment." Perenyi's Rule
463. While gardening the borders between work and play become blurred.
464. The garden symbolizes intelligence
actualized, and the fortuitous
integration of
forces that are far beyond our control.
465. Gardening teaches us to take our time, slow down, and wait in peace.
466. "Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment." Ducharme's Precept
467. "Quid facerem? What should I do?" Strabo's Query
468. Gardeners learn to live in worm time, bee time, and seed time.
469. The garden is just perfect as it is; and, yet, it still needs a little improvement.
470. On garden catalogs:
The gardening catalogs you have will not have what you want.
Mailing lists multiply garden catalogs like Castor Beans.
You will invariably get three copies of the garden catalog you don't want..
What you want in the garden catalog will often be overpriced.
When the plant is better than its description in the catalog - we order more catalogs.
Promises of fruit being "Sweet" and "Juicy" will sell seeds, and much much more.
A rich source of ideational compost.
471. It's OK to think while gardening; but, ill advised to garden while thinking.
472. Gardens are a nice place to hide from boring
conversations with
uninteresting people - yourself included.
473. Gardens are not inherently
meaningful in many ways; but, making a garden
and caring
for it creates meaningfulness.
474. One's garden is always reaching upward for the bees, birds, clouds, sun, stars ....
475. Come to your senses by gardening today.
476. What? Another damn Garden of Eden analogy!
477. The past provides the keys for unlocking the doors of the future, but we must open them.
478. There is no garden in the absence of observation.
479. "A garden always gives back more than it receives." Beamish's Precept
480. "For every credibility gap there is a gullibility fill." Clopton's Law
481. A garden is quite ordinary, yet still sacred.
482. A little of this and a little of that, and some exceptions - these are the facts.
483. Do not let consistency be an excuse for ignorance.
484. Don't grow delusions from a playful imagination.
485. Being "all natural" is no guarantee of safety.
486. A gardener seeks direct experiences, seldom concepts.
487. When gardening, look up more often.
488. Gardening gets you on your knees; praying is optional.
489. The harder we try to be simple, the further we miss the target.
490. Wise is the person whose heart and mind listen to what Nature says.
Mike Garofalo in 1993
Hacienda Heights, California
491. To work alone in the garden is a delectable form of sweetened isolation.
492. I never found God in my garden, but goddesses and gods and faeries dance everywhere.
493. Some animals are always busy cleaning up the dung and the dead.
494. Effectiveness determines the value of nonviolence.
495. Nan Fairbrother's Postulates:
Gardens are useful for working off a bad temper.
Gardening provides us with a subject for polite conversation at dinner.
We are perverse creatures and never satisfied.
Religion has planted many gardens.
496. Your dog will diligently pursue the alleged gopher in the center of your bed of annuals.
497. A child's curiosity is a boon to a gardener.
498. Good weather all the week, but come the weekend the weather stinks.
499. Be suspicious of the man who always embraces only one book.
500. Things become more complex when thinking, simpler when beholding.
501. Gardening leads us to embody our minds.
502. From strong desires great values are born.
503. Gardening enables men to embrace their animus.
504. Gardeners try to be peaceable, but are sometimes not pacifists.
505. A garden draws the eternal from the ever-fleeting.
506. Gardens: nice views out the window.
507. While observing your garden you change it.
508. "If people listened to themselves more often, they'd talk less." Courtois's Law
509. Variety, Creativity and Fertility are the Songs of the Great Goddess.
510. Fresh fruit from the tree - sweet summertime.
511. If you plant it, they will come.
512. Hell is a silent dark world where nothing grows.
513. Let the knee feel the ground, and the ground feel the knee.
514. It is always darkest before it gets pitch black.
515. Make sure that when you want to
climb to the top of the ladder
that it's
leaning against the right tree.
516. To always follow the hard, tough and rough way is foolishness.
517. When the weather is too hot they complain,
when it's too cold
they complain,
and when it's just right their watching TV.
518. The preferred shrub will grow slowly, the ungainly and ugly shrub will flourish.
519. Gardening is a Sport. Hoe for It!
520. Your dog will always shit near your favorite garden seat.
521. Watch the wind singing of the sea.
522. When the rare meteor shower occurs, the thick black rain clouds will roll in.
523. It is better to cultivate spiritual fruits than religious nuts.
524. You can drive Nature out with your hoe, but she always returns.
Water the soil not the plants.
The end of the garden is at the end of the hose.
The Golden Mean applies to watering a garden.
We are primarily weak salty water - chemically speaking.
Every gallon must work!
Water comes before food.
Drip, drip, drip ... your way to garden stewardship.
The good soil available often exceeds the water available.
One of the best herbicides: no water.
How far you are willing to carry buckets of water?
After transplanting: Keep the Roots in Moist Soil!
Never Waste Water!!!
Save water under a blanket of mulch.
"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." Ben Franklin's Proverb
"Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration." Erickson's Fact
The lack of water will cause blood to be spilled in many wars.
Gardens dream about water.
How much rain and when are the fundamental questions.
Watering is the essential ritual of gardening.
All enlightened beings are enchanted by water.
I garden, therefore I water.
526. Winter frees up more time for gardeners to do nothing.
527. Setbacks add some salt to every sweet success.
528. Gardeners focus on tasks, not on themselves.
529. The garden is both a means to an end, and an end in itself.
530. The end of any gardening project is also always a beginning.
531. Make a good start, continue a good effort, and make it good in the end.
532. Just because you have pains, you don't have to be one.
533. A garden is a great place for a good belly laugh.
534. Gardening can be a spiritual practice, and a way of smiling in the sun.
535. Where and when will we be content with always being here and now?
536. Someday the hidden waters will stop flowing, and one exhale will be our last.
537. Birth and death placed us in the Heavenly Garden, but some choose to make hell for others.
538. Sowing and reaping - the karma of becoming.
539. Trust, my friend. Don't the trees leaf out - just like that?
540. DNA steers our watery flesh, forcing us to be ourselves.
541. Work a miracle? Hah! Gardening is miracle enough.
542. What a wonder! Just weeding onions!
543. We cooperate, we facilitate, we cope - we're "in charge" very little.
544. The answer is: there isn't just one.
545. There are many paths up the
mountain, and the views are not the same going up or coming down.
And, there are only
a few good paths up and down the mountain.
546. Making a living is different from making a life.
547. If you keep looking for one thing, you will find many.
548. Preparation and follow up take up more time than doing the deed.
549. Even Allah cannot alter the past; but our knowledge of the past changes each year.
550. Aging and death are epitomized by Autumn.
551. Humanity is worse for the planet than swarms of locusts or hurricanes in the summer.
552. The minutes might matter more than the day.
553. The season determines the week's work.
554. What you do now matters more than what you did yesterday.
555. Truth deals with the past; Hope deals with the future.
556. Beauty serves many masters.
557. The garden is a great place to hide from argumentative dolts.
558. Persons who cannot love trees lack something in their soul.
559. We live in a multiverse rather than a universe.
560. In the canvas of winter we can still find a spot of summer.
561. I intent to live and garden forever - so far so good.
562. Gardening should enhance you life, not consume it.
563. Patience is a tactic, a tool, a realistic coping with facts.
564. Minding the mind, massaging the muscles, grokking the garden.
565. Open the Gate of Mystery to reach the Marvelous.
566. A poverty of vision is not the only limitation.
567. Gardening provides a mutually beneficial nurturing of both garden and gardener.
568. Better to lend a helping hand than just to point a finger.
569. It is already together because we can't think any other way.
570. Boundless beauty, largely inexplicable, simple marvelous.
571. Springtime flows in our veins.
572. Impatience may be justified, but err on the side of patience.
573. Beware of the man who speaks of God only as a father or a son.
574. That which we don't or can't observe, directly or indirectly, remains rather mysterious.
575. Silence - never misquoted, sometimes misunderstood, often meaningful.
576. Is working in the garden really work?
577. My garden is an altar.
578. Some failures increase our energy and resourcefulness.
579. "Seeing" is not "believing."
580. We often overestimate what we can
accomplish in a day,
and underestimate
what we can accomplish in a week.
581. Be careful not to stand up for that which will cause your downfall.
582. Metaphors talk about the Way, but often cannot point to the Way.
583. Leave enough time for some pointless behavior to reveal your deeper desires.
584. The real "miracle" is cause and effect.
585. If you want to know who I am, eat my food with me.
586. The little choices, day after day, are the biggest issue.
587. Moving the mind from the head to the heart gives birth to the spirit.
588. The mother of sound is silence, the father is dancing air.
589. The seed and the egg: primal concerns.
590. As we think less we might listen more.
591. Planting winter branch cuttings - talk about getting something from almost nothing.
592. A leaf bud - hope visible.
593. Showing my grand daughter our rose garden - a sermon in scents.
594. Stay loose enough in body and mind to be surprised each day.
595. A garden is an incomplete artwork.
596. Standing naked in my garden, I laughed.
597. Planting trees is a story for the next generation.
598. A God who is understood is really misunderstood ... actually no God at all.
599. The gardener fights against Chaos, wins a few battles, but always looses the war.
600. Things always go downhill, fall apart, wear out ... the arrow of Time pierces everything.
601. Stop looking for the Greenman and He will appear.
602. Before you swear at the overgrown ivy, beware of Dionysus.
603. The gardener is a priestess, the garden her temple and followers, gardening her liturgy.
604. Fortunately, creeds and dogmas don't help you become a good gardener.
605. A soul is colored Spring green.
606. I tend the Valley Spirit Garden. Does your garden have a name?
607. Shoveling dirt, the ecstasy sweated away.
608. Religion is intimate with awe, anxiety, fear, danger, and death.
609. We make a garden for food, medicine, and wellbeing.
610. When we think of the fifth fact, we have often forgotten the first.
611. For a gardener, two plus two can equal two hundred.
612. The seed is the plan; earth, sun, air and water execute the plan.
613. Asking the right questions is essential to good thinking.
614. The Sacred Circle is the Circle of the Seasons.
615. As I mow, some birds think of eating bugs.
616. There are many keys to happiness; but, most often, the door is wide open.
617. Our choices should maximize, not minimize, the options for choices by others.
618. When the answers are elusive or confusing, examine the questions.
619. It is best to shut one's mouth in face of the sacred.
620. Without the Well - where would we be?
621. Roundness is the Holy Shape.
622. Lifestyles work or not; truth is not their justification.
623. Avoid dogmatists, they often end up treating you like a dog.
624. Time prevents too much from happening at once.
625. A million years and a second have the same feeling for the dead gardener.
626. All metaphors aside - only living beings rise up in the Springtime; dead beings stay quite lie down dead.
627. Many living beings are beautiful; many dead things are ugly.
628. The most fascinating animal in the garden is the Homo sapiens.
629.
630. Any gardener who is not using the scientific method will waste time and money.
I first read classical and
modern Western and Eastern philosophers when I was fifteen,
and have since considered myself a person with a humanistic, pragmatic, secular,
and
philosophical outlook on most matters. I have been content to use reasoning
and science
to help me solve most of my problems. Like most people, I make room for
mystical,
mythical, poetic, and symbolic viewpoints when dealing with many artistic,
psychological and values issues.
- Mike Garofalo
631.
632.
633.
634.
635.
636.
637.
638.
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640.
641.
642.
643.
644.
645.
646.
647.
647.
649.
650.
651. Shit ... I was supposed to file the blade on the opposite side?
652. I garden; therefore, I water.
653.
654. "The garden is a metaphor for life, and gardening is a symbol of the spiritual path." - Larry Dossey
655. The new sentence emerges: from the
marriage of us and others, imitation, objectives,
deadlines, idea play, and work.
Cuttings by Michael P. Garofalo
The History of Gardening Timeline
Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong
Pulling Onions by Michael P. Garofalo
Quotes
for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Clichés, Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 3,300 Quotes, Arranged by 135 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Copyrighted © 2008 by Green Way
Research
All rights reserved by Michael P. Garofalo
I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas,
Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California