A collection of Quotes from our Talking Roses:

‘Help us to be faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.’ May Sarton


‘I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow.’ David Hobson


ā€˜A garden required patient labour and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.ā€™ Lyberty Hide Bailey


‘Remember that children, marriages and flower gardens reflect the kind of care the get.’ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


ā€˜A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.ā€™ Gertrude Jekyll


‘It is at the edge of the petal that love waits.’ William Carlos Williams


ā€˜The desire, the capacity to enjoy, is an instinct; the love of flowers is innate, a remembrance of Edenā€™ Samuel Reynolds Hole


ā€˜There is peace in a garden. Peace and results.ā€™Ā  Ruth Stout


‘It is the time you have spent on your rose that makes her so important.’ Antoine de Saint-ExupĆ©ry, The Little Prince


ā€˜I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.’ Ruth Stout


ā€˜Girls, do not scrub and cook and scour until you have no time left to plant a tree, or vine or flowerā€™ Jane G Swissholm


ā€œTo forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.ā€ – Mohandas K. Gandhi


“When the night has been too lonely And the road has been too long, And you think that love is only For the lucky and the strong, Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows Lies the seed that with the sun’s love In the spring becomes the rose…. ā€œ – Bette Midler


Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.~ Rachel Carson


ā€œFlowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.ā€ –Ā John Ruskin


“The rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.ā€Ā -Anonymous


Ā ā€˜More things grow in the garden than the gardener sows.ā€™ ā€“ Spanish proverb


ā€˜One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.ā€™ -William Shakespeare


ā€œHow cunningly nature hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses and violets and morning dew!ā€ -Ralph Waldo Emerson


“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” -May Sarton


ā€œThe rose has been offered to us to open our sensibility, our hearts, our imaginationā€¦and has become the ā€˜place of memoryā€™ as Elie Wiesel defines it, and helps us to share in so many emotionsā€™“ā€“ Henri Delbard (A Passion for Roses ā€“ the notebook of Henri Delbard)


“If you canā€™t find a rose you like here, youā€™d better check your pulse.”
from ā€œRoses for Dummiesā€ but could equally apply to our new catalogue


Adopt the pace of nature:Ā  her secret is patience. Ā –Ralph Waldo Emerson


ā€˜A garden is not a place: it is a passage, a passion. We donā€™t know where weā€™re going, to pass through is enough; to pass through is to remain.ā€™
-Octavio Paz


“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”
-Michel de Montaigne


ā€œThose who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” Rachel Carson


To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.Ā –Jane Austen


ā€œYear’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instil in us.ā€ Hal Borland


“At the heart of gardening there is a belief in the miraculous.Mirabel Osler


“Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers – for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.” -Osho


“The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.” -Gertrude S. Wister


“Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.” -Standing Bear


“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” -Lao Tzu


“To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.” -Beverly Nichols


“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, or quiet enough to pay attention to the story.” -Linda Hogan


ā€œā€¦.the ancient ritual of the earth; ploughing and planting, reaping and threshing. The fundamental business remains unaltered; it is only the methods and tools that science is changing.ā€ -Patience Strong


ā€œThe rose is a flower of love. The world has acclaimed it for centuries. Pink roses are for love hopeful and expectant. White roses are for love dead or forsaken, but the red roses, ah the red roses are for love triumphant.ā€ -Unknown


“It matters not what goal you seek ā€“ its secret here reposes:
youā€™ve got to dig from week to week ā€“ to get results on roses.”
-Edgar Guest


“In looking back we remember only the triumphant consummations of each season. Failures and frustrations are forgotten; garden-memories are as perfect as garden-hopes.”
-Patience Strong


“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it,Ā it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world toĀ someone else. Most people in the city rush around so,Ā they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to seeĀ it whether they want to or not.”Ā -Georgia O’Keeffe


ā€œA rose is an argument. It proclaims the triumph of beauty over brutality, of gentleness over violence, of the ephemeral over the lasting, and of the universal over the particular. The same rose bursts into bloom on the North Cape and in the Sahara desert.ā€œ -Alain Meilland.


ā€œThis is the divine moment when we can hold the fairest blossom of spring in one hand and the sweetest flowers of early summer in the other.” -Patience Strong


“Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand that bestows them.” -Chinese proverb


ā€œGardening requires lots of water – most of it in the form of perspiration.ā€œ -Lou Erickson


ā€œThe way I see it, if you want a rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” -Dolly Parton


“Yes, in the poor manā€™s garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers –
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.”
-Mary Howitt


ā€œFlowers are not symbols of power. Flowers are too brief, too frail, to elicit much hope of eternity. In truth, flowers are far removed from the human condition and from all human hope. For a moment, in that moment, flowers are simply beautiful.”
Sharman Apt Russell ā€“ ā€˜Anatomy of a Rose ā€“ the secret lives of flowers’


“Itā€™s watering time
In the gardens of Heaven
As raindrops tumble
On cities and towns.”
-Richard Drillich, age 9, United States


“What is sown in the heart takes root in the soul”Ā -Anonymous


ā€œThe glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.ā€ -Alfred Austin


ALWAYS ON THE GO

In my new chariot,
I can run to and fro,
Don’t know why I do it,
I’m always on the go.

There’s folks I want to see,
And things I need to buy,
My wheels keep a-turning,
And time just seems to fly.

When I need to relax,
To my garden I’ll go,
Enjoy all my roses,
Where the pace is more slow.
-Ralph Moore


With a few roses (sic) in my garden,
half a dozen pictures and some books,
I live without envy.
-Lope de Vega


This old world that we’re livin’ in
is mighty hard to beat.
You get a thorn with every Rose
But – ain’t the roses sweet?
-Frank Stanton


To analyze the charms of flowers is like dissecting music;
it is one of those things which it is far better to enjoy,
than to attempt to fully understand.
-Henry T. Tuckerman


ā€œA garden is a love song, a duet between a human being and Mother Nature.”
-Jeff Cox, American garden writer


ā€œTo pick a flower is so much more satisfying than just observing it, or photographing it … So in later years, I have grown in my garden as many flowers as possible for children to pick.”Ā -Anne Scott James


ā€œAn idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.” -H.L. Mencken


ā€œThe most productive time in the garden is not spent digging and working but sitting and contemplating.” ā€“Anon


“A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love
will have no roses.” -Author Unknown


ā€œWhen you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a rose (lily) with the other.”Ā -Chinese Proverb


ā€œThe rose speaks of love silently, in a language known only to the heart.ā€
-Anon


ā€˜If you canā€™t keep pets, grow a rose. It will keep you just as busy and be just as good a companion! And it doesnā€™t bark.ā€ -Anon


“A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.” -William Carlos Williams


The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.Ā -George WIlliam Curtis


ā€œOne of the things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We all dream of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying those roses blooming outside our windows todayā€ -Dale Carnegie


“But he that dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose”
-Anne Bronte


“Spring has now unwrapped the flowers,
Day is fast reviving,
Life in all her growing powers
Toward the light is striving:
All the world with beauty fills,
Gold and green enhancing;
Flowers make glee among the hills
And set the meadows dancing.”
-from a Methodist hymnal


“A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.”Ā -James Dent


ā€œThe sweetest flower that blows, I give you as we part. For you it is a Rose, for me it is my heart.” -Frederick Peterson 1859-1938


“And now let us welcome the New Year,
Full of things that have never been.ā€
-Rainer Maria Rilke


“A single rose can be my gardenā€¦.a single friend, my world.”
-Leo Buscaglia


Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you its only seed.

-from ā€˜The Roseā€™ by Bette Midler and read at the naming of the Leigh Matthews Memorial Rose.


ā€˜The earth is absolutely honest;
it gives back what is put into it plus interest on the time, money and effort invested. Treat soil handsomely and it will give you a rich return.ā€
-Patience Strong


ā€œBe alive, be here ā€“ and know the beat of your heartā€œ -Zen saying


ā€˜If it were not for winter, we would miss the anticipatory joys of spring.
Let us be content with what is. Let it be winter.ā€™
-The Glory of the Garden ā€“ Patience Strong


ā€˜The Rose is the honour and beautie of flowers
The Rose is the care and love of the Spring
The Rose is the pleasure of thā€™ heavenly powers;ā€™
-From a poem by the ancient Greek poet, Anacreon


ā€œA garden is a friend you can visit at any timeā€ -Anonymous


ā€˜The first thing to plant in your garden ā€“ better soil.ā€™
-Anonymous (American Rose Society)


ā€œIt is in gardens that the greatest delight, mixed with much profit, is to be found.ā€
-Asmenius


ā€œConditor Horti Ferlicitatis Auctorā€ (They who plant a garden, plant happiness.)


ā€œGardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.ā€ -Elizabeth Murray


ā€˜A garden is a love song, a duet between a human being and Mother natureā€™
-Jeff Cox, garden writer


ā€œA garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with oneā€™s personal history and that ofĀ oneā€™s friends, interwoven with oneā€™s tastes, preferences and character and constitutes a sort of unwritten autobiography.ā€
-Alfred Austin


ā€œWhere, unwilling, dies the rose
Buds the new, another year.ā€
-Dorothy Parker


“If a person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either
done a poor job or is devoid of emotion”Ā -Liberty Hyde Bailey


ā€˜I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.ā€™ -Emma Goldman


ā€œIf you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.ā€ -Audra Foveo


ā€œFew would dispute with the rose her claim to be the queen of flowers, for where is her equal to be found? Is she not Godā€™s masterpiece?ā€ -Patience Strong


ā€˜A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.ā€™Ā -William Carlos Williams


ā€œNo occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earthā€¦and no culture comparable to that of the gardenā€¦But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.ā€ -Thomas Jefferson (1743 ā€“ 1826)


“Success and failure, triumph and disaster. That is the rhythm of life in the garden.”
-The Glory of the Garden – Patience Strong


ā€œAlthough it appears to be a simple space for recreational or social purposes, the garden contains within itself the means to fulfil the profound need of the human soul to create a paradise on earthā€ -Helder Carita, author of ā€œPortuguese Gardensā€.


ā€œIf we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant;if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.ā€ -Anne Bradstreet, 1612 ā€“ 1672


“What a man needs in gardening is a cast iron back with a hinge on it.ā€ -Charles Dudley Warner


ā€œRoses are the setting for my life,but it is people who are important.ā€ -Alain Meilland


ā€œNature is not governed except by obeying her.ā€ -Francis Bacon


ā€œA multitude of small delights constitutes happiness.ā€
-Charles Baudelaire


ā€œHeaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.ā€
-Henry David Thoreau


Order without Freedom is Tyranny
Freedom without order is chaos.


ā€œOf all human activities, apart from the procreation of children, gardening is the most optimistic and hopeful. The gardener is by definition one who plans for and believes and trusts in a future, whether in the short or the longer term.ā€Ā -Susan Hill


ā€œMore exquisite than any other is the autumn roseā€
-Theodore Agrippa D’ AubignĆ©, Les Tragiques. Les Feux


ā€œTo know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.ā€ -FrĆ©dĆ©ric Amiel


ā€œThe roses of love glad the garden of lifeā€ -Lord Byron


Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
-Herrick (1591 ā€“ 1674)


ā€œThe Spring already at my gate
With looks my care beguiling
The country round appeareth
Straight a flower garden smiling.ā€
-Anonymous.


The Rose is the perfume of the Gods, the joy of men,
It adorns the Graces at the blossoming of love,
It is the favoured flower of Venus.
-Anacreon.


ā€¦all superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
-Shakespeare, Richard ll


ā€œGreenfly, itā€™s difficult to see
Why God, who made the rose, made thee.ā€
-A P Herbert (1890 ā€“ 1971)


A garden is not a place:
it is a passage, a passion.
We donā€™t know where we are going,
to pass through is enough,
to pass through is to remain.
-Octavio Paz


ā€œI welcome the autumnal chill in the air. There is a stimulation about it. Life moves to a different rhythm. There is a sense of change in the atmosphere and change is good inasmuch as it prevents stagnation. We should grow weary of a summer that never ended.ā€ -Patience Strong (The Glory of the Garden)


“Like the musician, the painter, the poet and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made.” -Celia Thaxter 1835 – 1894.


ā€œTo contemplate roses is to punctuate oneā€™s days with poetry.ā€ -Anne-Sophie Rondeau, The Grand Rose Family


ā€œHappy is he who laughs at himself; he will not go short of entertainmentā€œ -Bourguiba Habib

Leave a Reply