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Quote by Elsa Bakalar

“Never plant without a bucket of compost at your side.”

Author

Elsa Bakalar (1919 – January 29, 2010) was an American garden designer known for her naturalistic style and sustainable approach to landscaping. Born in 1919, she grew up in New England, where her passion for plants and nature flourished. Bakalar's design philosophy emphasized harmony with the environment, using native plants and natural elements to create enduring gardens. Her work, primarily in the Eastern United States, left a lasting impact on horticulture. She also educated others through writing and lectures. Bakalar passed away in Massachusetts at age 90, leaving a legacy of ecological garden design. more

“The gardens I love best are those that are still affectionately tended by the people who own them and who made them - who planned and planted and replanned and replanted them, who dug in the dirt and moved hoses and watched the gardens change with the cycle of the seasons and over the passage of years.”

People Years Made Stills Love Is Garden Seasons Moved Cycles Passages Dirt

Author:Allen Lacy

“Plants respond far better to moderate but consistent care than they do to occasional bouts of heroic intervention.”

Care Plant Consistent Heroic Moderates Intervention Occasional

Book:Gardening 101

Source: Gardening 101

“Set the basketball on the kitchen table. Open a cupboard, get out a bottle of sesame seeds, and place a single seed beside the basketball. If you were to reduce the Earth to the size of a basketball, all the fresh surface water on the planet - all those rivers and lakes and ponds and streams - would fit inside that one tiny sesame seed. Add a second sesame seed; now you have all the usable underground water as well. Is fresh water a scarce resource?”

Source: The economy of nature: rethinking the connections between ecology and economics

“Tools of many kinds and well chosen, are one of the joys of a garden.”

Wells Kind Joy Garden Tools Chosen

Book:Gardener's handbook, successor to The gardener: brief indications for the growing of common flowers, vegetables and fruits in the garden and about the home

Source: Gardener's handbook, successor to The gardener: brief indications for the growing of common flowers, vegetables and fruits in the garden and about the home

“A colorful handle on a tool does nothing for me. Once it drops into that jungle out there, unless it's absolutely huge, it's gone until fall.”

Doe Fall Gone Huge Tools Handle Jungle Colorful

Author:Janet Macunovich

“A digging fork is a stout, short-handled tool with four flat tines about a foot long.... for weeding I use it delicately to nudge the soil loose from roots without breaking them.”

Long Use Four Feet Tools Roots Soil Flats Weed Digging Forks Nudge Stout

Author:Sara Bonnett Stein

“There is great satisfaction in a well-made clean tool that does its work well.”

Wells Doe Made Tools Clean Satisfaction

Book:The gardener: a book of brief directions for the growing of the common fruits, vegetables and flowers in the garden and about the house

Source: The gardener: a book of brief directions for the growing of the common fruits, vegetables and flowers in the garden and about the house

“I don't rely on muscle power to dig, I use a sharp spade and I wear boots.”

Use Rely Muscles Boots Spades