March is a month of considerable frustration - it is so near spring and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away.

Every year it seems to me I hear complaints about spring. It is either late or unusually cold, abnormally dry or fantastically wet, for no one is ever willing to admit that there is no such thing as a normal spring.

Today I am sure no one needs to be told that the more birds a yard can support, the fewer insects there will be to trouble the gardener the following year.

One of the pleasures of being a gardener comes from the enjoyment you get looking at other people's yards.

Anyone starting to garden... would be wise to look around carefully and see what grows well in other people's yards.

The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind.

Fall is not the end of the gardening year it is the start of next year's growing season. The mulch you lay down will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants.

Scents bring memories, and many memories bring nostalgic pleasure. We would be wise to plan for this when we plant a garden.