Late Winter Thoughts on Being a Gardener

Actually, these are not my thoughts, but those of “Monty”.

Monty or Montague Don is one of my all time favorite gardening personalities. His cult status, has not reached the United States and most of his books are not in wide circulation. I leave you some of his thoughts from a book called “The Sensuous Garden.” Maybe you too, will appreciate his words as much or more than his obvious gardening skill.

“Apples are twisted gently on their stalks to see if they will come away and are therefore ripe, the tulip curves of a pear weighed in the heel of the hand to test but not bruise. The tips of fingers tentatively pluck at a grape and measure the give in a second of careless but incredibly finely tuned assessment. Strawberries are lifted heavily off the damp, slug-ridden soil and coddled with straw, and the furry skin of a peach, feeling so like the head of a newborn child, produces and almost reflexlike delicacy of stroking. We cup the heavy bloom of a rose in our hand, stem between two fingers, so that not only may we raise it to our nose, we may also feel its weight (and worth) in our hand.”