Winter sunshine is a fairy wand touching everything with a strange magic. It is like the smile of a friend in time of sorrow.

This is the divine moment when we can hold the fairest blossom of spring in one hand and the sweetest flowers of early summer in the other.

I thought I had finished with romantic adventures, but half-way through life and well past the age for losing one's heart, I was suddenly swept off my feet by a new love, a passionate, tyrannical, all-absorbing emotion: the love of a garden.

In looking back we remember only the triumphant consummations of each season. Failures and frustrations are forgotten; garden-memories are as perfect as garden-hopes.

While it is February one can taste the full joys of anticipation. Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch.

In a garden you can find, quiet thoughts that calm the mind.

Success and failure, triumph and disaster. That is the rhythm of life in the garden.