Words of wisdom about a hobby so many of us love

Let’s Talk’s gardening expert Charlotte Philcox has been trawling through some books to find words of wisdom from so many people about gardening and farming. Here she shares just a few.

- Charlotte Philcox

OVER THE CENTURIES, PEOPLE HAVE WRITTEN endless words of wisdom about gardening, producing ditties and doggerel worthy of the best poets and humourists.

As a bit of light relief in these dark times, I have been in search of some of the best (and worst). How many people are aware, for example, of this anonymous observation, ‘Gardening: it’s cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes’? It seems perfect for anyone struggling with social isolation.

On a similar theme from ‘Anon’, who seems to crop up everywhere: ‘Hard work doesn’t harm anyone, but I do not want to take any chances’. Further to this, ‘Gardening adds years to your life and life to your years’. Or on a more ghoulish note, you might prefer ‘Gardeners are like doctors; they both bury their mistakes’.

Of course, not all quotes are witty, but give us a reminder of why gardening can be such a satisfying occupation.

Take this one, from Mahatma Gandhi: ‘To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves’. And Thomas Jefferson wrote that: ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow’, which is something we all need to do at the moment. Speaking of which, there’s an old Greek proverb, which is a reminder of one of the most important things we can do for the future of our planet, ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in’.