Patrick

“The garden—any garden—is in a state of unstoppable change. Each day, each week, each leaf, each bud, each flower—moving inexorably on to its next incarnation, the spring sparkle forgotten by the time of the summer show, that too fallen away before smoldering autumn. Then dead of winter, but one determined rose with a flower at Christmas.”
― Penelope Lively, Life in the Garden

“Lavender stoechas, which is all over these Spanish hills, should not damp off as it is apt to do in an ordinary border. This lavender would form agreeable clumps between the bulbs; fairly dwarf, it makes a change from the usual lavenders, such as the deep purple nana atropurpurea. Clip them close, when the flower-spike is going over, to keep them neat and rounded.”
― Vita Sackville-West, Sissinghurst: Vita Sackville-West and the Creation of a Garden

“I suppose the fascination of gardening lies a lot in the way one can plan for the future. Especially in such an insecure world. I open my morning paper and read of some fresh new horror the scientists have devised and then I plan some change in the garden that won’t be fully realized for at least five or six years. It’s illogical, of course, but it’s some comfort.”
― Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot

“They make extravagant use of gardens, do artists, they individualize them—a Monet garden is a world away from a Van Gogh garden—the garden may shape their work, but their gardens also shape our perception of the garden, of plants and flowers, so that, once seen, a particular painting will forever influence our own vision: reality is affected by metaphor.”
― Penelope Lively, Life in the Garden