The land is not an inheritance from our parents, but a loan from our children.
Old Indian refrain.
Sammy

My favorite is:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
- Romeo and Juliet Act ii. Sc. 2.

I think that quote means, if the rose, "Souvenir de La Malmaison" was named "pinkie" instead, it will still be the same classic bourbon rose. But will people buy a rose called, 'pinkie'?

I love this one:
"Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you." ~ Richard B Sheridan 1751-1816

"Garden as though you will live forever."

--William Kent

To Boldly Grow where no one has Grown before!
- Unknown

You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.
- Dorothy Parker

Gardening is a luxury occupation: an ornament, not a necessity, of life....
Fortunate gardener, who may preoccupy himself solely with beauty in these difficult and ugly days! He is one of the few people left in this distressful world to carry on the tradition of elegance and charm. A useless member of society, considered in terms of economics, he must not be denied his rightful place. He deserves to
share it, however humbly, with the painter and poet.
- Vita Sackville-West, 1892-1962

"...there is an honest limit to common sense..."

Liz Druitt

She made that statement in the context that a given rose may not be the toughest, most perfectly adapted rose for your garden, but you may cherish it nonetheless, because its beauty, fragrance, or historic value instills something in you. Her advice is to consciously select roses that will do well in your area, but she acknowledges that we are humans, and that is not a bad thing.

"...every spring they [Old Roses] create anew their colors and perfumes, and in their vigor and grace, they keep our past forever young..."

William C. Welch

Those are my two favorites.
Randy

"But dirty fingernails are not the only requirement for growing plants. One must be as willing to study as to dig, for a knowledge of plants is acquired as much from books as from experience."

and

"Any garden demands as much of its maker as he has to give. But I do not need to tell you, if you are a gardener, that no other undertaking will give as great a return for the amount of effort put into it."

Elizabeth Lawrence

I don't have a favorite quote. But that one that rosefolly offered says it all. I want to be planting acorns when I'm eighty. We don't just plant for ourselves, but for those who come after us. Even if my garden is torn down, or taken over by weeds once I'm gone, there will still be roses to take cuttings from under the wild clematis, and daffodils coming up amongst the Bermuda grass; and the soil will have greatly improved. Something will remain.

Years ago I was walking at one of the Italian lakes with my husband and we got on the subject of palm trees, date palms specifically: I must have expressed an interest in growing one. My husband quoted a saying to me: "Chi pianta datteri non mangia datteri", that is, He who plants dates doesn't eat dates: because the trees take a long time to reach bearing age. We passed a woman working on her knees in a garden bed as we talked; I mounted my defense of those who plant date palms, speaking in my clumsy fractured Italian of that time because we were with my Italian sisters-in-law who don't speak English. I said that my husband hadn't planted dates but yet had eaten dates, because someone else has planted the date palms that gave the fruit he ate. I said that we all enjoyed trees and flowers and fruits that came from someone else's labor, and we had an obligation to plant trees and flowers in our turn for the benefit of those who came after us, as a mark of gratitude. I had gotten about this far when I heard from behind me, "BRAVA, signora!" It was the woman who had been working in the flower bed as we passed. I don't remember her words, but the gist was clear: it was passionate agreement. Part of the great joy of gardening is that I don't do it just for myself.

Melissa

I ventured off my usual route today. Passed a home and garden in disrepair-old-derelict even. Standing proud were two trees covered in separate shades of pink blooms. Not trees i'm familiar with, either. I wondered about the gardener....

But hey, that's another story. Great stuff here, knew i was asking the right folks, hope there will be more coming.

Dorothy Parker and i-we could be friends ;)

"I am an old man, but a young gardener" T. Jefferson

{{gwi:235626}}

How about "Grow Dam* It!" My DH gave me a rock with this inscription and I move it around the garden. Sometimes it works.

Barbara

My little sign says: "You should have been here last week, the garden was at its peak"

Tivoli, can I steal that? That perfectly describes my garden or at least it would be a great excuse!

Barbara

The other day my son called to tell me he was standing under a Pin Oak that he remembers me planting in our yard when he was a little boy-.

He was looking up into the tree and said it will always remind him of me.

I think that is better tribute than a tombstone !!!!!

I also read somewhere that the height of optimism is an old person planting a tree they will never live to sit under.

This thought came to me as my DH was digging a hole for a new rambler-----"ouch" at my age (78) will I ever see its full glory---I can only hope !!!!!

I love this post---we have a great group here.

Florence

bbinpa, your midge may be reading your rock and thinking you mean them. You may need another one temporarily, "Die, Dam* it!" Your roses will know you are not talking to them. :)

Gean

This is the first time I have visited the Antique Rose forum and I just love garden quotes, so here is one of my favorites:

"It is only when you start a garden, probably after age 50, that you realize something important happens every day."

I also like:

"He who wants a rose must respect the thorn."

Mine are:

We come from the earth,
we return to the earth,
and in between we garden
"When the world wearies
and society ceases to satisfy
There is always the garden." - M. Aumonier

and

If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk;
If you want to be happy for three days, get married;
If you want to be happy forever, make a garden.
- Chinese Proverb

Eric

bbinpa...steal away! Isn't it the best!

Eric --I have a lovely framed print with that saying you posted-----"when the world wearies----etc---it is a nice thought.

My favorite uncle loved this-----"If instead of a gem or even a flower you would cast the gift of a happy thought into the heart of a friend---that is giving as the angels give."-------

Florence

"If we persist, I do not doubt that by age 96 or so we will all have gardens we are pleased with, more or less." Henry Mitchell. I only discovered him recently - his books are hilarious.

The original quote by Emma Goldman is:
"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck."

My version:
I'd rather have roses in my garden than diamonds on my neck.

For many more quotes so you can choose your own check out this site:

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Quotes

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt"

Right now a quote from the Oasis song 'Don't Look Back in Anger' fits my garden -

'Step outside, cause summertime's in bloom.'

Written by Noel Gallagher.
Love those Gallagher brothers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Incredible acoustic version of song on YouTube

Mathew McConnahy(SP)---mother told him to "notice the roses in the vase not the dust on the table"---I have this taped on my refrigerator.
that sure suits me--LOL
Florence

"Doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you ANYWAY."

Felder Rushing, Mississippi gardener and author of Passalong Plants

Melissa's story about the dates & the date trees reminds me of something I heard P Allen Smith say on tv the other day (& I've been waiting for the right place to repeat it!)

"We've all sat in the shade of a tree planted by somebody else."

I'll play!! My very favorite is a quotation on the back of a t-shirt I purchased at McLaughlin Gardens in South Paris, Maine: "A garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever". :)

God made rainy days, so gardeners could get the housework done.

Katy:

"It is only when you start a garden, probably after age 50, that you realize something important happens every day."

That is so true! Even though I started a little earlier than 50.
And welcome to the Antique Rose Forum!

Randy

I kind of like the Forest Farm catalog in this regard, with a mumber of gardening quotations from various sources.

Martin Luther is supposed to have once said "even if I knew that the world would end tomorrow I would still plant an apple tree today".

Here are some of my favourites:

"The more you garden, the more you grow"

and

"Plants just want to live"
from 'The Book of Outdoor Gardening', Smith & Hawken

and some I can really relate to:

"Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects."
Oscar Wilde

"A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to stay."
Sara Stein

"What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it."
Charles Dudley Warner

and finally, one I could adapt to myself:

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers"
Claude Monet

... only, in my case, flowers have brought out the 'photographer' in me!

Very enjoyable thread, thank you Mauirose!

MayBee

What an interesting thread.
A favourite one of mine is what my husband forwarded to me recently and asked me to stop buying more roses. It says:

'One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our window.' ~ Dale Carnegie

But my all-time favourite is a Chinese saying:

"When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other."

I like it so much that I normally spend one and a half pennies on flowers instead!

Melissa, that is a fantastic story. Gardening really does thread through generations, it's almost uncanny, but it does, it's a very "human" thing. So nostalgic.

The Italians really love their gardens and fruit, don't they?

"It is only when you start a garden, probably after age 50, that you realize something important happens every day."

I had never read this quote before - but one of the things I tell non-gardeners is that "I am one of the happiest people on the face of the planet because there is something new to look at in my garden every single day of the year. I ALWAYS have a reason to look forward to going home."

Pretty soon I'll be able to say there is a fragrant flower blooming every single day of the year. I may be there already.

My favorite is:

"It is only to the gardener that Time is a friend, giving each year more than he steals."

Beverley Nichols

(If you haven't read his gardening related books, you have a super treat in store!)

New to this forum, just found it. I'll give up my email signature line:

"Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it."
Russell Baker

(note I'm in central Texas)

ps - I begged a 6 month old cutting off of my neighbor of his Souvenir de la Malmaison (sp?)...brought it home, repotted it, Milogamited it...watered it...and its setting buds all over. Life is good. )

HE THAT WALD REACHE THE SWEITE ROSE
SULD NOW AND THEN BE SCRATCHED WT THE SCHARPE BREERES.

-- PROVERBS AND REASONS OF THE YEAR 1585

AS REPRINTED IN PAISLEY MAGAZINE 1828.

An observation made to Vita Sackville-West by her most senior gardener at Sissinghurst just before his death:

"Some peoples can grow things and some peoples can't."

Brenton