The satisfaction of a garden does not depend on the area, nor, happily,
on the cost or rarity of the plants. It depends on the temper of the
person. One must first seek to love plants and nature, and then to
cultivate the happy peace of mind that is satisfied with little.

In the vast majority of cases a person will be happier if he has no
rigid and arbitrary notions, for gardens are moodish, particularly with
the novice. If plants grow and thrive, he should be happy; and if the
plants that thrive chance not to be the ones that he planted, they are
plants nevertheless, and nature is satisfied with them.

We are wont to covet the things that we cannot have; but we are happier
when we love the things that grow because they must. A patch of lusty
pigweeds, growing and crowding in luxuriant abandon, may be a better and
more worthy object of affection than a bed of coleuses in which every
spark of life and spirit and individuality has been sheared out and
suppressed. The man who worries morning and night about the dandelions
in the lawn will find great relief in loving the dandelions. Each
blossom is worth more than a gold coin, as it shines in the exuberant
sunlight of the growing spring, and attracts the insects to its bosom.
Little children like the dandelions: why may not we? Love the things
nearest at hand; and love intensely. If I were to write a motto over the
gate of a garden, I should choose the remark that Socrates is said to
have made as he saw the luxuries in the market, "How much there is in
the world that I do not want!"

I verily believe that this paragraph I have just written is worth more
than all the advice with which I intend to cram the succeeding pages,
notwithstanding the fact that I have most assiduously extracted this
advice from various worthy but, happily, long-forgotten authors.