Gertrude Jekyll was not only a talented landscaper- she was also a brilliant philosopher! Here are 13 Gertrude Jekyll quotes for a zen outlook in gardening.

Ben Giles for Google Doodle
Ben Giles for Google Doodle

Source: Ben Giles for Google Doodle (Gertrude Jekyll’s 174th Birthday)

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Gertrude Jekyll, a Little Background

Gertrude Jekyll was an English horticulturist, author, and landscape artist who conceptualized and designed over 400 gardens. Her failing eyesight at 46 years old led her to curtail on painting, and join with up-and-coming architect Edwin Lutyens. Edwin Lutyens did the architecture, while Gertrude Jekyll did the landscaping- they found coherence in this way.

She also wrote several highly rated gardening publications. Her highly detailed designs inspired many gardens of today. Some of them include books about color schemes in planting flowers (Gertrude Jekyll’s Colour Schemes for Flower Garden), and garden design, and the changing seasons of a garden (The Gardener’s Essential Gertrude Jekyll).

She also had many talents that aided her majestic designs. She was a talented painter, photographer, designer, composer, and craftswoman. If you take no intertest in this quote, find more gardening quotes here.

Gertrude Jekyll, a Little Background
Gertrude Jekyll, a Little Background

Source: Heritage Images (via independent.co.uk)

The gardening landscape is constantly changing. What’s not changing however is how we apply color, and design to our grounds.

What’s also at a constant is how we generally feel about gardening. Sure, it sometimes makes us want to pull our hairs out. But more often than not it gives us a feeling of wellness and ease. It gives us a sense of fulfillment from growing something from seemingly out of nothing.

Gertrude Jekyll’s books have focused on these (and more), and gives us a better insight as to how a master landscaper does her work. Examples of these are in: The making of a garden Gertrude Jekyll, and Gertrude Jekyll and the country house garden, to name a few. These were also flowing with some of the most inspirational gardening quotes in existence.

So here are our list of the best Gertrude Jekyll quotes that will both inspire, and inform you.

Besides inspiring quote, i thought you won’t want to miss the tools to decorate garden tub just as as most of the plant lovers.

Gertrude Jekyll Quotes

#1 “A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust“

#2 “In the garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.”

#3 “It has taken me half a lifetime merely to find out what is best worth doing, and a good slice out of another half to puzzle out the ways of doing it.”

#4 “I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one’s hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass.”

#5 “There is no spot of ground, however arid, bare or ugly, that cannot be tamed into such a state as may give an impression of beauty and delight.”

#6 “I do not envy the owners of very large gardens. The garden should fit its owner or his or her tastes, just as one’s clothes do; it should be neither too large nor too small, but just comfortable.”

#7 “The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies, but never grows to the enduring happiness that the love of gardening gives.”

#8 “There is a lovable quality about the actual tools. One feels so kindly to the thing that enables the hand to obey the brain. Moreover, one feels a good deal of respect for it; without it the brain and the hand would be helpless.”

#9 “A garden is a grand teacher… above all it teaches entire trust.”

#10 “If you take any flower you please and look it over and turn it about and smell it and feel it and try to find out all its little secrets, not of flower only but a leaf, bud and stem as well, you will discover many wonderful things. This is how you make friends with plants, and very good friends you will find at the end of our lives.”

#11 “It is no use asking me or anyone else how to dig… Better to go and watch a man digging and then take a spade and try to do it.”

#12 “The best purpose of a garden is to give delight and to give refreshment of mind, to soothe, to refine, and to lift up the heart in a spirit of praise and thankfulness.”

#13 “More than half a century has passed, and yet each spring, when I wander into the primrose wood, I see the pale yellow blooms and smell their sweetest scent – for a moment I am seven years old again and wandering in that fragrant wood.”

Holding on. Did this gardening quote inspire you to diy a project for your garden? Take a look: 

Wrapping It Up

We have Gertrude Jekyll to thank for the amazing forms and designs that our gardens have. Capturing the beauty similar to that of the colors in a canvas, she’s applied the concept of the Colour in the Garden to her designs. She has also given us the most valuable philosophies surrounding planting and gardening as a whole.

We hope you liked our list! Here are a few more if you want to get deep, or just want to read up on some gardening philosophies:

For more home and garden tips and ideas, visit Guy About Home today.

Hi there! I’m Guy, the guy behind Guy About Home (that’s a lot of guy’s). I’m just your average guy (ok, I’ll stop) living in the USA who is really interested in making and doing.