In addition to all its rich offerings to the body and its five senses, gardening engages the mind.

In addition to all its rich offerings to the body and its five senses, gardening engages the mind.

When I need to be precise about a plant, I use its Latin name, even if my nongardening friends sometimes look at me a little funny for using big words in a dead language - or in the kind of horticultural Esperanto that botanical names make up.

Not knowing where your food comes from is a primary form of alienation.

Show me a person without prejudice of any kind on any subject and I'll show you someone who may be admirably virtuous but is surely no gardener. Prejudice against people is reprehensible, but a healthy set of prejudices is a gardener's best friend. Gardening is complicated, and prejudice simplifies it enormously.

In a well-made garden every day is new.

Democracy is fine in politics. It should stay there, and we need more of it. But its political virture is no reason to practice it in the garden.