March is a month of considerable frustration - it is so near spring and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away.

Once we become interested in the progress of the plants in our care, their development becomes a part of the rhythm of our own lives and we are refreshed by it.

One of the pleasures of being a gardener comes from the enjoyment you get looking at other people's yards.

I'm no good at cooking or music, but I've always known how to garden. Nobody ever taught me; I just absorbed it. Some families are churchgoers or sports fans. We gardened.

Fall is not the end of the gardening year; it is the start of next year's growing season. The mulch you lay down will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants.

March is a month of considerable frustration - it is so near spring and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away.

Today I am sure no one needs to be told that the more birds a yard can support, the fewer insects there will be to trouble the gardener the following year.