Marta McDowell > Quotes

“I am intrigued by writers who garden and gardeners who write. The pen and the trowel are not interchangeable, but seem often linked.”
― Marta McDowell

“Spring is that wonderful if somewhat delusional time for a gardener when the sap rises and everything seems possible.”
― Marta McDowell, Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children's Tales

“Since the late 1840s settlers used close-planted Osage orange trees along the borders of their farms, creating, as the thorny wood filled in over some years of trimming, a living fence “horse-high, bull-strong and hog-tight.” It was barbed wire in the days before barbed wire was invented.”
― Marta McDowell, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books

“Ma minds more than manners for the girls. She models an aesthetic appreciation of beautiful things, including these delicate floral offerings.”
― Marta McDowell, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books

“The gore and glory of the public library’s mystery section along with PBS, Acorn TV, BritBox, and Hallmark Mysteries have sustained my habit ever since. With the mystery genre booming in print and on screen at present, I have had no problem satisfying no my cravings for crime.”
― Marta McDowell, Gardening Can Be Murder

“To friends, she sent bouquets, and to some of her numerous correspondents—over one thousand of her letters have been found—pressed flowers.”
― Marta McDowell, Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet

“In 1999, two botanists, Elizabeth Schussler and James Wandersee, wrote a guest editorial for The American Biology Teacher. They were lobbying for education to prevent a syndrome they termed “plant blindness,” an inability to recognize plants and their importance. People have a tendency—validated in studies of school children—to rank animals first in importance. Plants are easier to ignore than animals. Members of the plant kingdom probably won’t eat us, in contrast to “lions and tigers and bears.” Plants stay put.”
― Marta McDowell, Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers

“As long as one has a garden one has a future; and as long as one has a future one is alive. It is remaining alive which makes life worth living—not merely remaining on the surface of the earth. And it is the looking forward to a future which makes the difference between the two states of being.”
― Marta McDowell, Unearthing The Secret Garden: The Plants and Places That Inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett