Happiness comes from growing what thrives, not merely survives.

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!

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

If you cut a shrub back because it's just too big, and it dies, you haven't lost anything but a plant that couldn't live by your rules.

If someone says "You're not doing that right," hand him the shovel, sit and watch. That's the right way to garden.

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.

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.