Garden Quotes

Punny, Funny, Witty and Whimsical

There are lots of great garden quotes out there. Here are just a few collected together for you.

Some are short and sweet little phrases that would fit perfectly on a garden sign or plaque, others are longer and can be attributed to a particular person (usually a gardener) with their wisdom and passion shining through.

Quite often, they're used in gardening and plant books to introduce each chapter. They are also commonly found as images with a beautiful picture overlaid with the quote.

There are lots out there for almost any use. This selection is just a tiny fraction of what's out there.

Where possible, I've included the original source but so many of these have been lost to history.

Thyme is of the essence

How Thyme flies when you’re having fun

There’s no Thyme like the present

Gardeners know the best dirt

Always try to grow in your garden some plant or plants out of the ordinary, something your neighbors never attempted. For you can receive no greater flattery than to have a gardener of equal intelligence stand before your plant and ask, 'What is that?' ~ Richardson Wright

When gardeners garden, it is not just plants that grow, but the gardeners themselves ~ Ken Druse

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before ~ Vita Sackville-West, 1892 – 1962

If I'm ever reborn, I want to be a gardener— there's too much to do for one lifetime! ~ Karl Foerster

So many seeds -- so little time

All gardeners live in beautiful places, because they make them so ~ Joseph Joubert

It's a sign of wisdom that seeds don't squander their energy all at once, instead calmly waiting until the time is right. Seeds aren't stupid ~ Midas Dekkers' The Way of All Flesh' in 'Romance of Ruins' "

'There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.'~ Mirabel Osler

'Most gardeners are daunted, not dumb' ~ Felder Rushing

'I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers' ~ Claude Monet

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ~ Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1871

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~ Lou Erickson

The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow. ~ Author Unknown

Green fingers are the extension of a verdant heart. ~ Russell Page

From an aunt, long ago: 'Death has come for me many times but finds me always in my lovely garden and leaves me there, I think, as an excuse to return.' ~ Robert Brault

Don't wear perfume in the garden - unless you want to be pollinated by bees. ~ Anne Raver

Old Gardeners never die, they just go to seed.

There are lots of Thymely Sayings on this page; Signs of the Thymes and many more Garden Sign Sayings on Blue Fox Farm.