The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth, one is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

If patience be a virtue, then I am a woman of great virtue indeed. But laziness and gluttony are sins, and I am a woman of those too, indeed.

Weeds are only robbers in your garden if you provide the getaway car when you remove them. Treat your robbers, and they can treat you.

These are all tellers kinds of things. I watch my wild yard, and find most of this holds true to timing in the gardens.

Plant corn when oak leaves are the size of a mouses ear. Beans when the lilacs start blooming, curcurbits when they are fading. Harden off hardies after the maples have flowered. Harden off tenders after the maples have dropped their spring spinners. Wildsow once the daffodil greens are a palm high. Don't wild dig till the bees have left the ground. Ant piles in the drivway means rain should be coming. Potatoes are planted when the birds spring cacophony starts, and are getting late by peepers cacophony. Plants should be safe once cygnets are out on the pond. Goldenrod blooming marks the start of seasons true decline, cleanup should be done by their last fading. Cottonwood drifting marks the start of seasons true heating, and all garden setup and starts should be ready by then.

Im trying to remember a poetic comment made by a remarkable Japanese American gardener who had an apple orchard on an island in Puget Sound (Washington state) until they lost their land and were sent to an internment camp in WWII. There was a wonderful article about this couple in The Seattle Times Pacific NW magazine maybe 30 or 40 years ago. Unfortunately, I no longer have the quote, but it was something like this:

Even the most accomplished gardener must sometimes pull his own weeds.

I have found this to be a useful reminder in many aspects of my personal and professional life, not to mention when I am out in the garden. And I wish I could remember or find the exact quote.

Here are two of my favorites -

Live each day as if it is your last,

and garden as though you will live forever.

-------------------------------------------------

Your mind is a garden

your thoughts are the seeds

the harvest can be

either flowers

or weeds.

Enjoying all of these. Keep them coming.

@beesneeds I wonder how much of this is locale specific. If "spring spinners" refers to maple seeds, our don't fly until late fall and throughout winter as storms blow through. Although maybe there are varieties that shed them in spring.

"Harden off tenders after the maples have dropped their spring spinners."

We also have very few oak trees. :o)

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.
8
Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

@SeniorBalloon it depends on the maple. Silvers is spring, reds are often spring, sometimes fall. Sugars drop in the later summer into fall. I got all three in my yard. When the sugars drop their spinners in the fall, I tend to clean them off the driveway because the pine straw shed is going to happen soon. I like to use pine staw in the garlic bed and outdoor cat spots. We got some maples in the backyard into the back acres that can drop later in the fall too, but I don't know what tellers would go with them.

Plant on a whim. Lay the footpath where your heart says it should be. Change things because you feel like it. Garden for the love of it. ~Lindley Karstens

Wonderful topic! This Walt Whitman has stuck with me

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass—innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Not a proverb, but a very old gardener once said to me "when I'm feeling terrible, I go out and do some gardening, and I always feel better". Works for me too.

"A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world.” ~Wendell Berry, one of my favorite poets.

“A weed is a plant that has mastered every skill except for learning how to grow in rows.” not sure who said this.

"Sometimes you have to wade through the hog-wallow to get to the melons."

--Buddy Ebsen (as TV character Barnaby Jones).

Mine is a Spanish one, "Una golondrina no hace verano." One swallow does not make it Summer.

Just saw this on my newsletter from the National Gardening Association (Garden.org):

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson