Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hardy celebration... in the very teeth of winter.

In his garden, every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation.

While working among the little plants of the far places of the world we forget the narrowness of our own orbit.

A garden full of sweet odours is a garden full of charm, a most precious kind of charm not to be implanted by mere skill in horticulture or power of purse, and which is beyond explaining. It is born of sensitive and very personal preferences yet its appeal is almost universal.

The gardens of my youth were fragrant gardens and it is their sweetness rather than their patterns of their furnishings that I now most clearly recall.