Take care with manufactured chemicals, certainly. Your safety and long term health are more important than anything. Yet don't forget that if you grow even a dozen different plants, you are surrounded by chemistry. Inside their cells even the most ordinary plants creates potent fungicides, insecticides, irritants, balms, hallucinogens, sedatives, nerve toxins, cell repair stimulants, lures, repellents... you name it. Treat all plants with respect!

Gardeners often focus exclusively on plants, missing the absolutely essential visual role played by structures, from paths to pavilions.

If a bush is too big, don't ask "should I?" Go ahead and cut it. If it lives, great. If it dies, replace it with something better suited!

We think we learn by growing a plant but we can't know if it's just surviving or truly living? We really don't know anything about a plant until we kill it.

I have heard people say, "I garden in lieu of therapy, but therapy would be cheaper." I believe gardening's worth the price since it's at least as effective in curing head and heart of what ails us.

Be pleased with your real garden, don't persue the perfection of a picture. What you see in a photo lasted only as long as the shutter snap.

The best gardener is a baby killer. Baby insects are much easier to kill than adults, and haven't yet developed the big mouths and voracious appetite of the adolescent.