If you’d like some gardening inspiration, there are lots of great garden quotes and sayings to give you a boost.
I’ve rounded up my favourite garden quotes and gardening sayings to lift your spirits and inspire you. There are also some funny ones to put a smile on your face.
As well as being inspiring, these gardening quotes make great captions for when you’re sharing your garden pictures on social media. Make sure you share them with your green-fingered friends too!
Read on for lots of gems about gardening, plants, flowers and why we love gardening so much.
Inspirational garden quotes
“Garden as though you will live forever.” – William Kent
“The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.” – Gertrude Jekyll
“I always see gardening as escape, as peace really. If you are angry or troubled, nothing provides the same solace as nurturing the soil.” – Monty Don
“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.” – Alfred Austin
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.” – Rudyard Kipling
“I’ve always felt that having a garden is like having a good and loyal friend.” – C Z Guest
“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” – A A Milne
“I like gardening – it’s a place where I find myself when I want to lose myself.” – Alice Sebold
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” – Pablo Neruda
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn
“The more help a person has in the garden, the less it belongs to him.” – W H Davies
“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” – Margaret Atwood
“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” – May Sarton
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.” – Gertrude Jekyll
“All gardening is landscape painting.” – William Kent
“If you’ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden.” – Robert Brault
“The biggest obstacle to good gardening is the desire to know the answers and not the questions.” – Monty Don
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.” – Alice Walker
“Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That’s the fun of them. You’re always learning.” – Helen Mirren
“When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.” – Minnie Aumonier
“Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are. – Alfred Austin
“Use plants to bring life.” – Douglas Wilson
Gardening sayings & garden proverbs
Life begins the day you start a garden. – Chinese proverb
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. – Greek proverb
He who plants a garden plants happiness. – Chinese proverb
More grows in the garden than the gardener sows. – Spanish proverb
The garden is the poor man’s apothecary. – German proverb
Happiness is to hold flowers in both hands. – Japanese proverb
The gardener who loves roses is slave to a thousand thorns. – Turkish proverb
April showers bring May flowers. – English proverb
Yesterday’s flowers are today’s dreams. – Japanese proverb
To an optimist every weed is a flower; to a pessimist every flower is a weed. – Finnish proverb
All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today. – Indian proverb
All gardeners know better than other gardeners. – Chinese proverb
Flower garden quotes
“The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.” – William Wordsworth
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” – Luther Burbank
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” – Henri Matisse
“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” – Sigmund Freud
“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” – Lady Bird Johnson
“To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” – Gerard de Nerval
“Flowers are the music of the ground. From earth’s lips spoken without sound.” – Edwin Curran
“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” – Theodore Roethke
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.” – Zen Shin
“It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.” – George Eliot
“Earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.” – Rabindranath Tagore
“A flower blossoms for its own joy.” – Oscar Wilde
Funny gardening quotes
“Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“My neighbour asked if he could use my lawnmower and I told him of course he could, so long as he didn’t take it out of my garden.” – Eric Morecambe
“Gardening is cheaper than therapy – and you get tomatoes.” – unknown
“A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.” – Doug Larson
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” – Janet Kilburn Phillips
“Housework is for people who don’t know how to garden” – unknown
“The philosopher who said that work well done never needs doing over never weeded a garden.” – Ray D Everson
“Gardening is easy. Stick it in the ground the right way up and most plants will grow perfectly well.” – Monty Don
“A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place but intends to stay.” – Sara Stein
“Old gardeners never die, they just go to seed.” – unknown
“Gardening requires lots of water – most of it in the form of perspiration.” – Lou Erickson
I hope these quotes about gardening and garden sayings have inspired you. If you’ve got a favourite garden quote that isn’t on my list I’d love to hear it in the comments 🙂
More gardening fun
For some more light-hearted fun with a gardening theme, check out these posts:
Gardening resources
If you’d like some more gardening inspiration, the following features might be of interest:
What to plant gardening calendar
55 easy grow your own tips, ideas and resources for beginners
Pin for later
