Silly gardeners! We buy pretty, comfortable benches and position them oh so carefully. But does the gardener ever sit? No! We perch momentarily and then jump up to do that next thing we see.

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

Wood's not natural mulch for a woodland garden. Do you see forest trees shatter into a zillion pieces and fall? No. They fall, then decompose, then spread.

You don't know the plant until you've killed it. Then you've learned something.

You can put a gardener behind the wheel, but you can't keep her eyes off the landscape.

When many plants are out of the picture in winter, it becomes clear that many of them should be pitched out. It's also much easier to do that before they come up and begin to talk to us.

Gardeners in regions with very long summer days have a great opportunity, and should use more of the cool colors that literally glow in the low light of morning and evening.