Best Inspirational Garden Quotes To Make You Think

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There’s little more rewarding than seeing your garden efforts in bloom. Or maybe it’s walking in a vibrant field of cheery sunflowers. Or you’re exploring interesting plant varieties in a beautiful botanical garden.

Envision breathing deeply into a velvety, fragrant rose.

No matter which kind of garden experience you prefer, gardens of all kinds are restorative!

If you are drawn to gardens as I am, you’ll love these inspirational garden quotes.

Just browse this extensive collection of garden sayings and quotes that are sure to make you think about gardeningโ€”and life…long beyond spent blooms.

Editors Note: We updated this post in June 2022 with more garden quotes to keep it fresh!

Inspirational Garden Quotes - woman with hat in field of sunflowers
A walk through a field of sunflowers is “nirvana” to many gardeners.

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โ€œThe glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.โ€

โ€”Alfred Austin

โ€œI grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow.โ€

โ€”David Hobson

โ€œThe love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.โ€

โ€”Gertrude Jekyll

โ€œI like gardening โ€” it’s a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.โ€

โ€”Alice Sebold

โ€œMy garden is my most beautiful masterpieceโ€

โ€”Claude Monet

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”

โ€”Vincent van Gogh

“The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer Godโ€™s Heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth.”

โ€”Dorothy Frances Gurney

Inspirational Garden Quotes - woman touches purple hydangea
Unusual blooms, like this purple hydrangea, can be very intriguing!

Best Garden Sayings and Quotes

โ€œFlowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.โ€

โ€”Luther Burbank

โ€œIf you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. โ€

โ€”Marcus Tullius Cicero

โ€œTo plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.โ€

โ€”Audrey Hepburn

โ€œI am more myself in a garden than anywhere else on Earth.โ€

โ€”Doug Green

“Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream.”

โ€”Josephine Neuse

โ€œGardening is the work of a lifetime: you never finish.โ€

โ€”Oscar De La Renta

โ€œThere are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.โ€

โ€”Janet Kilburn Phillips

Japanese wooden bridge crosses small river
This lovely Japanese garden makes a peaceful retreat–restoring your sense of “calm” in just minutes.

โ€œEverything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.โ€ 

โ€”May Sarton

โ€œShow me your garden and I shall tell you what you are. โ€

โ€”Alfred Austin

โ€œThere are always flowers for those who want to see them.โ€

โ€”Henri Matisse

Related: Discover the Best Botanical Gardens Around the World

โ€œGarden as though you will live forever.โ€

โ€”William Kent

โ€œA garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.โ€

โ€”Gertrude Jekyll

โ€œIn the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.โ€

โ€”Margaret Atwood

Inspirational Garden Quotes - orange spotted butterfly and orang flowers
Some of the most beautiful guests in a garden have wings!

More Famous Garden Quotes

โ€œI love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden.โ€

โ€”Ruth Stout

โ€œGardens. I think, dream bigger than emperors.โ€

โ€”Mary Cantwell

โ€œTo see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

โ€”William Blake

โ€œGardening adds years to your life and life to your years.โ€

โ€”Unknown

โ€œA garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.โ€

โ€”Liberty Hyde Bailey

โ€œIt was such a pleasure to sink oneโ€™s hand into the warm earth, to feel at oneโ€™s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.โ€

โ€”Kate Morton

โ€œIf you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

โ€”Marcus Tullius Cicero

โ€œThe garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.โ€

โ€”Michael Pollan

Pink and peach anemones
Some say morning, long before the world has risen, is the perfect occasion to spend time in the garden.

Gardening Quotes for Inspiration

“Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.”

โ€”Elizabeth Murray

โ€œIf youโ€™ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden.โ€

โ€”Robert Brault

โ€œLife begins the day you start a garden.โ€

โ€”Chinese proverb

โ€œRemember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.โ€

โ€”H. Jackson Brown, Jr.  

โ€œHelp us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.โ€

โ€”May Sarton

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.”

โ€”Alfred Lord Tennyson

โ€œThere are no happier folks than plant lovers and none more generous than those who garden.โ€

โ€”Ernest Wilson

โ€œThrough gardening, we feel whole as we make our personal work of art upon our land.โ€

โ€”Julie Moir Messervy

โ€œThe best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.โ€

โ€”George Bernard Shaw

โ€œWhat is a weed? A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.โ€

โ€”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course, it is our garden that is really nurturing us.”

โ€”Jenny Uglow

two yellow and pink roses with dew | Enjoy Travel Life
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” -The Little Prince

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay an invincible summer.”

โ€”Albert Camus

“I feel like I should clean the house, so I’m going to my garden to play until the feeling passes.”

โ€”Unknown

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower, clearly our whole life would change.”

โ€”Gautama Buddha

“Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.”

โ€”Unknown

“Procrastiplanting (verb): When you have a million things to do but ignore them all and tend to your plants instead.”

โ€”Unknown

“Growing your own tomatoes is the best way to devote 3 months of your life to saving $2.17.”

โ€”Unknown

“There is something infinitely healing about the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

โ€”Rachel Carson

“The seed has all its potential within it, the gardener simply helps unlock it.”

โ€”The Well-Gardened Mind

“I have found, through years of practice, that people garden in order to make something grow; to interact with nature; to share, to find sanctuary, to heal, to honor the earth, to leave a mark. Through gardening, we feel whole a we make our personal work of art upon our land.”

โ€”July Moir Messervy, The Inward Garden

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.”

โ€”Ann Bradstreet

“How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.”

โ€”Vincent van Gogh

“The creation of a thousand forests is one acorn.”

โ€”Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A garden is not a place. It’s a journey.”

โ€”Monty Don

“Did you know that if you garden naked, your neighbours will build a privacy fence at no cost to you?”

โ€”Unknown

“To forget how to dig the earth and tend to the soil is to forget ourselves.”

โ€”Mahatma Ghandi

“When gardeners garden, it is not just plants that grow, but the gardeners themselves.”

โ€”Ken Druse

“A garden is a friend you can visit any time.”

โ€”Okakura Kakuzo

“You know that tingly feeing you get when you enter a plant shop? It’s the commonsense leaving your body.”

โ€”Unknown

“A gardener learns more in the mistakes than in the successes.”

โ€”Barbara Dodge Borland

“Manโ€”despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishmentsโ€”owes his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”

โ€”Paul Harvey

More Gardening Quotes

“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view.”

โ€”H. Fred Dale

“Need money. Not homeless, Wife keeps buying plants.”

โ€”Anonymous

“And into the garden I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

โ€”Anonymous

“I don’t care what people think about me. A long as my plants like me.”

โ€”Unknown

“It’s only when you look at a flower really close up that you can truly appreciate how beautiful it is โ€” and how many little creepy-crawlies live on it.

โ€”Chris Madden

“In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers and the dreams are as beautiful.”

โ€”Abram L. Urban

“Advice for the Gardener: Grow PEAS of mind, LETTUCE be thankful, SQUASH selfishness, TURNIP to hep they neighbor, and always make THYME for loved ones.”

โ€”Unknown

“I was just sittin’ here enjoyin’ the company. Plants got a lot to say, if you take the time to listen.”

โ€”Eeyore

“Grow through what you go through.”

โ€”Anonymous

Count the garden by the flowers, never the leaves that fall. Count your life with the smiles and not the tears that roll.

โ€”Mark Gutteridge

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness has clearly never been to a garden center!

โ€”Anonymous

There will be people who say you buy too many plants. Those are not your people.

โ€”Anonymous

Don’t tell secrets in the garden. The potatoes have eyes, the corn has ears, and the beanstalk.

โ€”Anonymous

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity.

โ€”Anonymous

You know if you don’t rake the leaves they turn into soil, right? They don’t break into your house and drink all your wine or anything.

โ€”Anonymous

All gardens are a form of autobiography.

โ€”Robert Dash

Mary, Mary, quite contrary / How does your garden grow? / With silver bells and cockleshells / And pretty maids all in a row.

โ€”Tim Hart And Friends

Lettuce romaine in the garden forever.

โ€”Anonymous

Final Thoughts on Inspirational Garden Quotes

I hope these inspirational garden quotes have given you a little reprieve from every day life. Sometimes, a little garden therapy is all you need to put things in perspective.

Do you have a favorite garden quote listed among these Inspirational Garden Quotes? Which one is it? Or, if I’ve missed a garden saying that you love, please let me know in the comments below and I’ll add it in!

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4 thoughts on “Best Inspirational Garden Quotes To Make You Think”

  1. Many of these people are clearly my kind of people! I think the two themes that emerge from all these quotes are the joy of nurturing something, of watching it grow, of the work with earth and seed and plant and how satisfying it is … and on the other hand, the joy that comes from creating beauty through gardening. I particularly love the Marcus Tullius Cicero quote about having a garden and a library, and that being all one needs. As a true book lover, this resonates with me enormously!

    • I share your love of gardening, Kavita. And it’s funny how book-lovers and gardeners seem to go hand-in-hand…but they do!

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