Gardening makes me appreciate life more. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from learning from failure and achieving success. Plus you meet a lot of wonderful people along the way.

Aren't we happy when something we plant then grows ? I think if gardening doesn't make us happy, we wouldn't do it.

One who plants a garden plants distraction from worries.

One who plants a garden plants faith in Nature.

One who plants a garden plants a better understanding of the big picture

One who plants a garden plants ability to survive.

Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day,teach them how to catch fish and you feed them for a lifetime.

I think for me, it just means I spend time and money on this hobby instead of something else. I like seeing what I grow, and yes it gives me some bit of happiness, but it's not like something that makes me so satisfied and happy that I couldn't give it up if something happened where I could no longer garden, such as moving to an apartment or going on an extended business trip for 6 months during prime growing season.

I definitely enjoy learning about new plants and bugs, though. It amazes me that a bug I've never seen in my entire life, even randomly, will show up if I plant the kind of plants it likes. How does this bug know!!?

It just makes me smile :-)

I am never more content and happy than when I am in my garden. I would be very dissatisified if for some reason I had to quit gardening.

Gardening is the joy in your heart made visible. At the end of the day, we sit on the swing and say there is no place else I would rather be. It is our Garden of Eden! It's not as bad as before when we would sit in the night darkness with a flash light and a camera, waiting for a night bloomer to open. We've mellowed a bit. Now, we just do a morning walk to see all the new surprises that the night has brought us. We've learned patience and revel in simple joys... and that's a good thing.

Yes, it is true.

Molly

One who plants a garden... sweats a lot :-)

Lisa

Hmmm..., deep, Lisa, deep.

Thank you all for your lovely answers to the question! As much as I love, love, love to garden I'm going to confess that my thoughts when I pass the sign, which, by the way, was given to me by a non-gardening friend, are more along the lines of what MizGG and Lisa said.

Little does my friend know that "One who plants a garden plants ... ":

a

dang

lot

of

work!

(Whoo hooo -- can't wait to get up in the morning and get back out there :-)

One who plants a garden gets to rest, lol. You can always garden at your own pace and you're already at home if you want to stop and relax. We have three other hobbies that are really work... Bird watching, painting and photography. Birdwatching requires travelling to sites, hiking, and then sitting still for hours watching and waiting for that white throated warbler to appear. Painting requires staying up past midnight working on a 'masterpiece' to meet an art show deadline. Photography requires travelling and hiking again, but laden down with tripods, heavy lenses and camera gear. All soooo much fun but soooo much WORK! Love, love love them all... or we wouldn't be doing them. Gardening? A piece of cake! Gotta run... I'm off to fight the freeway traffic to sit in my masterpiece class. In other words, I'm off to work. :-))

Since I'm sitting here right now wearing sweat-drenched clothes, a beet read face, and dirt-stained fingers, I have to agree with you roselee.

absolutely and sometimes gardening changes the concept of time for me

I imagine it depends on what the part of the country you live in. Is that picture from the Pacific NW maybe? Or the NEasterners who think its unbearably hot it if the temp reaches 90 for a day or two? People who have no concept of summer perhaps because their summer is like our late spring? Droughts? Floods? Wind? Invasive plant battles? Dirt clods? Caliche? Hail? Grasshoppers or other pests?

Don't get me wrong, I love working outside. I call it 'working' rather that the tamer term 'gardening'. Its often a battle zone but I like the activity involved even though I'm often in misery out there. Its like a math problem that rolls around in my head as I try to figure out what will work, what to try instead, what to rip out, what will fix that mess or what will actually survive summer without non stop watering and not look like crap. My brain gets overwhelmed at times. Maybe I'm just anticipating summer now that Memorial Day is over and its looming with heat domes and drought. Gardening is like the weather, vainly trying to stabilize itself but always needing adjustments with disasters from time to time. But thats what I like about it. If gardening ever really got to the point of resembling that relaxed elf sitting and reading by a sappy 'its so eazy peazy' sign, I'd be real bored. I like the challenge of gardening in Oklahoma which I imagine is almost as bad as Texas, in fact I know it is. We come from tough prairie pioneer settlers up here, its the only way we are able to stand it, otherwise we'd of moved a long time ago or just thrown in the towel.

I met a woman this weekend who was from Virginia. She was complaining of how unbelievably hot it was and had to sit in the shade because she feared she was having a heat stroke. Gee, and I was commenting on how cool it was this last weekend, so nice, partly cloudy & breezy I went crazy with the pole saw and trimmed tree limbs before the heat really sets in.

Ha, Ha, Roselee and I are friends and she knows full well how I like to banter with her. Her garden is beyond beautiful and I know full well how hard she works, but that's my point! One works hard in their own garden and then one can relax in their own garden with tea and crumpets!

MsRed Byrd, you're right. It's a lot of work, but if I didn't have the goal of making a pretty place to stroll around in, or to sit back and enjoy I'd never get any exercise. It keeps me moving for sure. That and now Alfie ... :-)

And yes, time seems to stop when you're doing something you enjoy -- beet red face, dirty fingernails, sweat and all.

Wow, Max and Sport and now Alfie.... I agree with you totally!

One who plants a garden is in better shape physical shape than one who doesn't.

Texasranger, I think the plaque was no doubt designed and manufactured in the Pacific NW and it should be against the law to sell in Texas lest people get the wrong idea about gardening here ... LOL

I think the quotation is meant to reflect on the happiness that is felt by the gardener and the garden visitors "after" the garden has been planted, and is not meant to reflect on the lack of happiness derived "during" the process. So, strictly speaking, for me, the gardener does indeed plant happiness.....just my opinion, lol

Molly

Agreed Molly!

To me it's a wonderful feeling after I've finished a project big or small, cooled off under a fan and had a nice cooling shower to step back out with a cool beverage and survey my efforts!

I was thinking of replacing the last word with obsession. We plant our obsession into the ground. LOL. I wish I could be out there, but work has taken over my life and I walk through my garden running from shop to shop. I am missing being plugged into the garden.

Well gee, I doe no. Somehow that sign just conjured up visions of the original version of the movie 'Stepford Wives' and that perfectly made-up woman in the big straw hat with her little basket full of flowers under her arm happily putzing in her garden on a warm windless day wearing a dress with gloves on her hands. Sorry, but thats totally what popped in my head and I reacted because currently I'm all scratched up and have a couple bandaides on my unpresentable scratched up legs and my hands are 100% unpresentable too with fingernails I can't quite get clean underneath. My only excuse is I spent the last 3 days sawing limbs off hackberry trees and I'm sort of sore and cranky right now and probably the blood drained out of my head a few times with my neck cranked back like that. In reality gardening around here ain't nuthin like I see elsewhere, on the Perennials forum for an example, not to mention those pictures in the seed catalogs. Heck, people go to the trouble of planting vegetables in Oklahoma and end up with heartbreak half the time but they pick themselves back up and do the same thing next year because we are just optimistic that way. As for me, I went the prairie route with lots of cactus and haven't looked back but I do need the tweezers out there and I get stuck a lot.

Obsession is a good word. The word I came up with was driven.

It's definitely a passion. Hard work, but rewarding. I had to get the ole push mower out today, 1/2 acre hilly yard with wet, thick grass (mower kept getting clogged up and shutting off) and boy, was I saying a few choice words. Even the birds were blushing. I can barely move right now. I had to take a few breaks, the humidity made me so dizzy, I was seeing spots (I had a heat stroke many years ago).

But then it rained an hour after I finished, and I sat on the patio with a cool drink, watching it hit the freshly mowed yard and flowers. Felt good. :)

And I love when I've let all the various shrubs get just a little too overgrown, and spend all day with the electric hedger ... I always leave the house and drive back just to see how nice it looks. We're a weird bunch, for sure. :D

Work, sweat, broke, sore, scratched, frustrated, obsessed, driven, droughts, floods, wind, weeds, pests, overwhelmed, dirty, heat stoke, sun burned ... are we having fun yet????

And then there's happiness, pleasure, exercise, rest, passion, joy, faith, smiles, wonder, cold drinks, piece of cake, breezes, satisfaction in surveying our domain and more!

Hahahaha -- I'm lovin' it, all of it, and I know y'all are too ... whoo hoo -- let's grab a rake, fork, shovel, and hoe and keep on keeping on ... :-)