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

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.

Every noble achievement is a dream before it is a reality just as the oak is an acorn before it is a tree.

Few would dispute with the rose her claim to be the queen of flowers, for where is her equal to be found? Is she not God’s masterpiece?

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.

It has been said that the only reason for leaving England is to give yourself the pleasure of coming back to it.

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