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

much of gardening is a struggle against the fecundity of Nature.

I welcome the autumnal chill in the air. There is a stimulation about it. Life moves to a different rhythm. There is a sense of change in the atmosphere and change is good inasmuch as it prevents stagnation. We should grow weary of a summer that never ended.

gardening is something more than a pastime; it is a religion.

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

New words are always being born and old ones fading away.

The trees change their voices in autumn as well as their shapes. No longer do they whisper to one another in muffled tones as they did in summer; they talk in a different leaf-language now. The wind moves through the boughs like fingers drawn across the strings of a harp filling the air with the harsh dry sound of sapless leaves. It is the main theme of the autumn music, this murmuring counterpoint of dead leaves.