Most years I share my collected garden photos with you, and this year I have some lovely gardening quotes to add, thanks to a book that my dear friend Sandi gave me (she has her own beautiful garden in Charleston).
We had a big garden in Cluny, but now I have to be content with my balcon in Beaune. Where I manage to cram in so many pots of flowers that it's a bit difficult to get to the chairs.
So come along, s'il vous plaît, on my annual garden tour. But first, one quirky cultural note: Americans say gardeners have "green thumbs", the Brits say "green fingers", the French say "green hands", les mains verts.
I had fun matching the garden quotes to the photos. On y va:
"Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel."--Aldo Leopold
Speaking of which, these roses are pure poetry.
"If you look the right way you can see the whole world is a garden."--Frances Hodgson Burnett
Below, my great friends Pete and Dee's Burgundy garden, and the beautiful view beyond.
"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." Margaret Atwood
Dee spent long hours in her southern Burgundy garden.
"Earth laughs in flowers."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
...and here are a couple of very happy window boxes
"The great thing is not to be timid in your gardening, whether it's colors, shapes, juxtapositions..splash around and enjoy yourself." Christopher Lloyd
Walking down a street in Beaune that is lined with a little creek, I shot these two photos with cheerful pops of color, au bord de l'eau.
"Blue, blue, blue, melting, cerulean, altogether exquisite and desirable". Reginald Farrar
"If you would be happy all your life, plant a garden." Nan Fairbrother
These shots are from my small balcony in Beaune. I carpeted it in "grass" to make it feel more like a garden.
"Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts." Mac Griswold
"All gardening is landscape painting". William Kent
The photos below are of my dear friend Ellen's fabulous garden in southern Burgundy. Can you tell she's a designer by trade? And a painter, too.
"Garden as though you will live forever." William Kent
"I want death to find me planting my cabbages." Michel de Montaigne
"Gardener's have to believe that the dead will reincarnate." Mirabel Osler
Valerian, which reseeds wildly, in a cemetery in Provence.
"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; and above all, it teaches entire trust. "Gertrude Jekyll
Here is a pretty impressive parterre garden at a Burgundy château we visited.
"Learn gardening from the wilderness outside the garden gate." Wendy Johnson
An exuberant clematis, chez Nicole, our châtelaine.
"A garden with vegetables, fruits, and flowers feeds body and soul. Grow all of them." Andrew Weil
Herbs, fleurs, and veggies cohabit in the gardens at the Château de Cormatin.
"Green fingers are the extensions of a verdant heart. A good garden cannot be made by somebody who has not developed the capacity to know and to love growing things."--Russell Page
My great friend Alix has a garden in Provence that is époustouflant (remember that word from the last post?). She is also a designer, and these vases brimming with flowers are art from her garden. A shot of one of her garden rooms is below.
"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul." Luther Burbank.
A flowery little watercolor I spotted, at and of the Nice flower market, which I wish I'd bought but didn't.
"Let plants choose their destinies." Nancy Lawson
Wisteria, la glycine in French, tumbles over a wall from a hidden garden, on our street in Beaune.
May our heart's garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers." Thich Nbat Hanh
In the COMMENTS: Chic alors! So many readers sent in favorite French expressions! Too many to list here, but do read the commments from the last post. So many of the expressions are funny and there are severeal that are new to me. Merci, les amis!
There was one favorite French expression lurking in the back of my head that I couldn’t quite pull out of my old brain, but voila, Kathie did it for me. Bon chic bon genre refers to chi-chi Parisian types, and is often abbreviated to BCBG (say "bay-say-bay-jay" and you will be close). This was taught to me by a very hip 15 year old French neighbor of mine, many moons ago.
Favorite READS: The quotes here are from The Gardener Says, Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom, complied by Nina Pick.
And several from our readers: Natalia likes People Who Love to Eat Are Always the Best People, the collected wisdom of Julia Childs. Susan recommends the book of French expressions, Sky my Husband! literally Ciel mon mari. (let's hope you don't need this expression: Ciel mon mari! translates loosely to "Heavens, it's my husband!", and is typically an exclamation by a woman who is caught in a secret tryst). Dani suggests art lovers will like Gabrielle, by Anne and Claire Berest. In French only, I believe. Martin recommends a darling book called The Complete Merde: The French You Never Learned in School.
Merci à tous!
Favorite VIEWS: If you'd like a nice little armchair tour of La Bourgogne, Rick Steves is your man, on youtube. He bases his trip in Beaune and he goes to our former town of Cluny, too. He gives you a taste of a canal tour and explains the gîtes ruraux system too. It's a great start for a trip to Burgundy.
And, one of our readers is a nature photographer in Wyoming, who has beautiful framed photos and nature note cards on offer. Check it all out at Ruttlewild.
